'Thank you, POTUS!' NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore touchdown, Elon Musk credits Donald Trump
NASA Crew-9 astronauts Sunita Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov breathed the air on earth for the first time in over nine months on Wednesday (India time) after the successful SpaceX Dragon capsule mission. See the reaction of SpaceX owner Elon Musk.

The wait is finally over! NASA Crew-9 astronauts Sunita Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov breathed the air on earth for the first time in over nine months on Wednesday (India time) after the successful SpaceX Dragon capsule mission. With the completion of the successful mission, the tech billionaire and SpaceX owner, Elon Musk, shared his first reaction.
Musk took to his X (formerly called Twitter) and posted a thank you message quoting the SpaceX's splashdown clip. He reshared SpaceX's post saying, "Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return."
Splashdown confirmed! #Crew9 is now back on Earth in their @SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/G5tVyqFbAu
¡ª NASA (@NASA) March 18, 2025
Elon Musk's first reaction to the success of the SpaceX mission
The Tesla owner further in the post shared a message that showed that both Musk and Trump believe that the Joe Biden administration left the astronauts and delayed their return to Earth.
¡°Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return! Thank you to @POTUS for prioritizing this mission,¡± wrote the head of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return!
¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2025
Thank you to @POTUS for prioritizing this mission! https://t.co/KknFDbh59s
Moreover, reported HT, during a press conference this month, NASA and SpaceX representatives didn't confirm Musk's allegation about the Biden administration.
Credit: X
Promise Made, Promise Kept
Steve Stich, one of the commercial crew program managers, said that the agency considered a wide range of options and worked with SpaceX to find the best way to bring the astronauts back home.
The White House also repeated a contentious claim that US President Donald Trump had accelerated the recovery period. It wrote on X, ¡°PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT."
¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2025
The final touchdown
The Crew-9 members successfully conducted the mission to bring back the NASA astronauts as per the contingency plan, with technical help from Elon Musk. The duo were stuck aboard the space station as their Boeing Starliner developed technical snags, calling it unfit to use for returning to Earth.
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