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.

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.”

Since the start of 2025, Elon Musk's rocket manufacturing company SpaceX has been busy completing multiple launches, starting on Jan. 3.