NASA on Tuesday announced that two of its stranded astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) could return home a little earlier than previously scheduled, because it was switching planned capsules for the flight.

President Donald Trump last month said that Elon Musk's SpaceX would oversee the return flights of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who were only expected to be on the station for a week. The pair have been on the ISS since June and NASA has repeatedly delayed its rescue missions.

The space agency said that SpaceX will still conduct the operation, and will swap out its capsules for the flights in order to move up the launch to mid-March instead of late March or early April as previously stated.

“Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich told the Associated Press.

The space agency has not confirmed the new launch date, but the next launch to the ISS is scheduled for March 12. 

The astronauts will be replaced by Crew 10 commander Anne McClain, pilot Nichole Ayers, Japan's Takuya Onishi and cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. The handover to get the new crew up to speed is expected to take five-to-seven days, per CBS News.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.