NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore, Sunita Williams and Nick Hague, spoke to media on Tuesday ahead of their much-anticipated return from the International Space Station. During the interaction, Williams and Wilmore addressed many topics including the politicisation of their mission, which was supposed to last just eight days.

The two astronauts flew to the space station in early June 2024 on Boeing Space's Starliner capsule. They were scheduled to return from the ISS eight days after testing the spacecraft but the capsule malfunctioned in space, prompting NASA and Boeing to ditch Starliner.

After weeks of discussions, NASA decided that Williams and Wilmore will return on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in February 2025. It later got delayed past mid-March.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, as well as US President Donald Trump, have claimed that the Biden administration deliberately "abandoned" the duo in space for political reasons. When asked if Wilmore believes Musk, he said that there is no politics involved but contrarily called Musk "absolutely factual."

"I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual. We have no information on that whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered; who it was offered to, how that process went. That's information that we simply don't have. So I believe him," Wilmore said.

ALSO SEE: Elon Musk Gets Into Ugly Spat With European Astronaut Over Sunita Williams's Return; 'You Are Retarded'

Musk has claimed on multiple occasions that he offered to bring the duo back in 2024 but was turned down by the Biden government. In a post on X, he also shot down speculations that NASA was hesitant in seeking help from SpaceX due to budgetary constraints.

"Price was never even discussed! They flatly refused. We would have made it work within the annual budget. The real issue is that they did not want positive press for someone who supported Trump," Musk wrote.

Meanwhile, NASA and SpaceX are working to launch the Crew-10 mission following which Williams will return with Wilmore and Crew-9 commander Nick Hague.

ALSO SEE: SpaceX To Launch NASA's Crew-10 On March 12 In Haste To Bring Sunita Williams Back From ISS

(Image: NASA)