Elon Musk accuses Biden of delaying SpaceX mission to bring Sunita Williams home

SpaceX Chief Elon Musk reiterated his claim and accused the previous Joe Biden administration of refusing to allow the launch of another Dragon capsule to bring back NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been in space for nine months.

“The astronauts were only supposed to be up there for 8 days and now have been there for 8 months. SpaceX could have sent up another Dragon and brought them home 6 months ago, but the Biden White House (not NASA) refused to allow it,” said Musk replying to a tweet.

Elon Musk added that US President Donald Trump asked him to bring them back “as soon as possible” and he is doing so.

Earlier, Wilmore refuted claims that politics played a part in his and Williams' return. During a news conference on Tuesday (March 4), Wilmore said that while politics is part of life, it did not play into his and Williams' return.

Now, the astronauts are just a few weeks away from finally returning to Earth after nine months in space. The return moved up a couple of weeks thanks to a change in SpaceX capsules.

Wilmore and Williams were expected to be gone just a week or so when they launched last June aboard Boeing's new Starliner capsule, making its crew debut after years of delay. The Starliner had so many problems getting to the space station that NASA ruled it too dangerous to carry anyone and it flew back empty.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have to wait until their replacements arrive at the Space Station next week before they can check out later this month.

President Donald Trump and SpaceX's Elon Musk said at the end of January that they wanted to accelerate the astronauts' return, blaming the previous administration.