- SpaceX just brought home two astronauts who were stuck on the International Space Station for months.
- Their return was a fairly routine spaceflight for SpaceX.
- It’s a victory Elon Musk can claim after a series of setbacks to his other ventures.
Elon Musk and his many projects have had a rough couple of months, but SpaceX nailed an undisputable win for him on Tuesday.
The rocket company’s Crew Dragon spaceship splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, carrying two NASA astronauts who were stuck on the International Space Station for about nine months.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore became international news after their Boeing spaceship glitched as it approached the ISS in June. NASA decided it was safer for them to fly SpaceX home. The change of plans meant they had to stay and serve a full shift with the next astronaut crew, turning their original weeklong mission into nine months.
Their safe return is a win for Musk after a series of high-profile setbacks, from exploding Starship rockets to a Tesla stock crash.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla and SpaceX woes
Williams’ and Wilmore’s return is a much-needed win for SpaceX and Musk, who is struggling recently.
Musk himself said on Fox Business that he’s had “great difficulty” running his companies since taking on the Department of Government Efficiency, which was created by an executive order by President Donald Trump and aims to slash federal spending.
He didn’t elaborate, but that day Tesla’s stock had dropped 15%, bringing Musk’s net worth down $29 billion.
Tesla has also been the subject of a series of protests, boycott efforts, and vandalism incidents in recent months. The electric vehicle company’s sales have plunged in multiple countries, including the US.
That all culminated in Trump promoting Tesla cars last week on the White House lawn, where he inspected and praised five of the company’s vehicles and said he would buy one.
“The Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for,” the president wrote on Truth Social ahead of the Tesla event.
Then there’s SpaceX. The company’s up-and-coming Starship mega-rocket was making significant progress with each uncrewed test flight until this year, when two consecutive flights ended with premature explosions.
Those flights are experimental. In early March, however, one of the company’s routine Falcon 9 rocket launches encountered an unexpected issue: The rocket’s booster, which normally lands itself on a droneship for reuse, instead caught fire and toppled over after landing.
All the while, Musk has been contending with criticisms and backlash against DOGE — from legal challenges to scrutiny of its hires.
Corporate experts have told Business Insider that Musk is “way overstretched” since taking on DOGE and “may have finally reached his tipping point.”
Musk claims victory
SpaceX has been scheduled to bring the two astronauts back since August, when NASA officials decided they weren’t confident enough in Boeing’s spaceship to return Williams and Wilmore.
Musk started teeing their return up as a new victory in January, when he said on X that President Trump had asked SpaceX to bring them home “as soon as possible.”
Musk has since said on Fox News that Williams and Wilmore were “left up there for political reasons,” which multiple astronauts have disputed. The day ahead of their return flight he shared a video of Wilmore saying he appreciated Musk and Trump.
Despite the hubbub, this was a pretty routine flight for SpaceX. It was the 10th time the company’s Crew Dragon vehicle has returned NASA astronaut crews to Earth in the last five years — in addition to five private Crew Dragon flights.
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