Late Tuesday afternoon, Elon Musk put out a message on X saying that President Donald Trump had asked him to return the two Boeing Starliner astronauts who have been on the space station since June as soon as possible.

While Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s situation is unusual, their return trip will be pretty routine, as they were already slated to fly home on a SpaceX capsule as part of a scheduled crew rotation.

Starliner co-pilot Sunita Williams is now the world's most experienced female spacewalker, moving up to No. 4 overall.

The founder of SpaceX said President Trump had asked his company to return two astronauts aboard the space station to Earth “as soon as possible.” NASA said it would do that “as soon as practical.”

SpaceX and Vast Space are looking for research ideas to fly aboard Vast's new Haven-1 space station launching later this year.

So the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore has never been a political story—until this week. And it's a good thing that the two will be in space tomorrow because, as attested to in the tagline for the movie Alien, in space, no one can hear you scream.

Elon Musk says Donald Trump has asked SpaceX to rescue two astronauts who have been in space for more than seven months — even though NASA has said there's a plan in place.

SpaceX on Wednesday night launched a Spanish communications satellite from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and retired the first-stage booster rather than landing on a drone.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station to swab the orbiting lab for evidence of microorganisms.

Liftoff is scheduled for 8:34 p.m. ET tonight (Jan. 29).