NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore says politics aren't why he and his crewmate are still in space nearly 9 months longer than planned

• NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams held a press conference last week.

• Wilmore said politics hasn't influenced the timeline for when he and Williams will return to Earth.

• Elon Musk said the astronauts were left at the International Space Station for "political reasons."

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore said politics aren't the reason he and pilot Suni Williams are still in space nearly nine months after they were expected back on Earth.

The two launched on Boeing's Starliner ship on June 5, 2024, planning to stay on the International Space Station for a week or so. It's been over 275 days since then.

Ahead of their anticipated return in late March, Wilmore and Williams hosted a press conference from the International Space Station last week, answering questions about their mission, return, and how politics plays a role.

Although Wilmore and Williams are about 250 miles from Earth, comments made by President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have thrust them into the political spotlight.

In January, Trump said Wilmore and Williams were "virtually abandoned by the Biden Administration" in a post on Truth Social.

Musk, the face of DOGE, said the two astronauts were left in space for "political reasons" during a joint interview with Trump on Fox News in February.

The billionaire reiterated this claim during a spat on X with European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, saying he offered to bring Williams and Wilmore home on a SpaceX ship, but the Biden administration declined.

During the press conference, a reporter asked if Wilmore and Williams felt politics had influenced their timeline to return to Earth.

"From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all," Wilmore said during last week's press conference, adding, "We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short. That's what we do in human space flight. That's what your nation's human space flight program is all about, planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that."

When asked how it felt to be at the center of a political story following Trump and Musk's comments, Wilmore said politics are "part of life" and that he and his fellow crewmates aboard the ISS — Williams and Nick Hague — support the US and its leaders.

The astronauts have been in space since June 2024

In June, the two astronauts traveled to space aboard Boeing's Starliner ship to conduct its first crewed flight, which was meant to prove Boeing could be used for routine human space travel.

However, five of Starliner's reaction control system thrusters malfunctioned as it flew to the ISS. The spacecraft's helium system was also leaking.

NASA and Boeing, unsure of how the thrusters would perform on the flight back to Earth, conducted weeks of tests and reviews. Ultimately, NASA did not feel confident in Boeing's spacecraft and tapped Elon Musk's SpaceX to bring Wilmore and Williams home.

Although the pair were expected back on Earth in February, a delay with SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship means they aren't expected to return until late March.

NASA plans to launch a new crew, dubbed Crew 10, into space on March 12. If all goes according to plan, after Crew 10 arrives at the ISS, Crew-9 — including Wilmore and Williams — will hand over operations to the new crew.

"Following the handover, NASA and SpaceX will prepare to return to Earth NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard Crew-9 pending weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of Florida," NASA said on its website.

Representatives for NASA, SpaceX, Musk, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment made outside regular business hours. A representative for Boeing referred BI to NASA.

Read the original article on Business Insider