Urged By Donald Trump, NASA Is Ready To Return Two Astronauts Trapped In Space Faster

Two NASA astronauts trapped on the ISS (photo: X @nasa)

JAKARTA NASA has changed the schedule for the launch of the Crew-10 mission to repatriate Crew-9 members. The sooner the launch is carried out, the sooner the mission shift and task is carried out by the crew.

The US space agency said that the Crew-10 mission is targeted to take off on March 12. While preparing the spacecraft to be used, NASA is still awaiting completion of launch certification for the mission.

In this launch, NASA is still taking advantage of SpaceX's spacecraft. Instead of using a new aircraft capsule, Crew-10 will be delivered using Dragon capsules as usual. This change was made because the production of the latest capsule was being postponed.

"The flight will now use Dragon, previously flown, called Endurance, and a joint team is working to complete the hardware assessment of the spacecraft previously flown to ensure it meets safety requirements," NASA said in an official statement.

The progress on the launch date of Crew-10 was driven by US President Donald Trump's insistence on Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, to bring the Starliner crew home early. Last year, NASA and Boeing launched Starliner on the International Space Station (ISS).

The manned aircraft carried two NASA astronauts, namely Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Both are planned to return within two weeks, but the damage to the Starliner left the two astronauts staying longer on the ISS.

The two joined the Crew-9 mission to return to Earth, but the two astronauts have been stuck on the ISS for nearly a year. Initially, the Crew-10 launch was scheduled for March 25, but now the launch window has been pushed forward for almost two weeks.

After Trump pushed Musk to send Wilmore and Williams home early, NASA confirmed that they had done the same thing, namely repatriating the two astronauts as soon as possible.

Trump's statement left Wilmore and Williams in the political spotlight, according to a Reuters report. The reason is, Trump blamed Joe Biden, the previous president, for the situation experienced by the two NASA astronauts. In fact, Biden was not involved in the Starliner program.