SpaceX’s delay in getting its new Crew Dragon spacecraft to fly to the International Space Station has meant a longer stay on board for the pair of NASA astronauts that flew up on Boeing’s Starliner last summer but were left behind when it flew home without crew because of safety concerns.

Now, Elon Musk has said President Trump has asked SpaceX to bring home Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams “as soon as possible,” according to a post on X Musk made on Tuesday.

“We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” Musk posted.

Already Williams and Wilmore were assigned to come home with SpaceX instead as part of the Crew-9 mission’s return flight.

Boeing Starliner astronauts remain busy on ISS, but ‘eventually we want to go home’

The Crew-10 mission that was supposed to fly up in February to relieve Crew-9 on board, though, has been delayed by at least a month as SpaceX’s new fifth Crew Dragon spacecraft was not yet ready to fly, according to both SpaceX and NASA officials.

That rotational mission is now not slated to launch until late March, meaning Williams and Wilmore may not get home until early April. That would mean a 10-month-long stay in space instead of the original plan of having as short as an eight-day stay on board as part of the Starliner Crew Flight Test mission.

The duo launched aboard Starliner on that spacecraft’s first human spaceflight when it launched June 5 last year atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The spacecraft, though, suffered thruster failures and helium leaks on its propulsion module, which led to months of debate as to whether or not to fly it home with the astronauts on board.

Ultimately, Starliner left without Williams and Wilmore, landing safely in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico on Sept. 7.

SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission then arrived on Sept. 29 aboard the Crew Dragon Freedom, flying up with only two crew so that it could fly back with Williams and Wilmore on the flight home.

NASA and SpaceX’s plan for Crew-9, though, is not to fly home until after Crew-10 arrives, giving the two crews a handover period on board the station.

NASA has not announced any changes to the mission plan yet, but NASA has once before sent a Crew Dragon home before its replacement arrived.

Crew-2 departed the station three days before the Crew-3 arrival back in 2021.