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.

Billionaire Elon Musk vowed Tuesday to bring home the two astronauts who have been stuck in space for about eight months “as soon as possible” – and blasted the Biden White House for not retrieving them sooner.

Two NASA astronauts flew to the International Space Station in June on Boeing's Starliner capsule. The test flight was planned for eight days but technical troubles forced the capsule to return empty.