NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams weren’t the only ones to make a splash when they returned to earth.
A pod of dolphins swam in to welcome the pair — who were in space nine months — home Tuesday.
Drone footage showed the dolphins around the SpaceX Dragon capsule holding Wilmore and Williams along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov after it splashed down off the Florida coast, per People.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center released a video of dolphins joining the capsule and nearby boats in the welcome celebration.
Watch the video below:
The two officially landed at about 6 p.m. local time.
“Splashdown of Dragon confirmed – welcome back to Earth, Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleks!” SpaceX wrote on X.
An announcer exclaimed, “And Splashdown! Crew 9, back on earth.”
Wilmore and Williams went to the International Station in June 2024 and were only expected to stay a maximum of 10 days. Those plans were scrapped when they occurred mechanical issues. The spacecraft returned to earth without the astronauts.
A new crew, consisting of astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, arrived on March 14.
Photos documenting their return were posted on X by NASA’s Johnson Space Center March 18:
The caption read, “Home sweet home 🏠. NASA’s SpaceX #Crew9 touched down at Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field in Houston at 11:19 pm CDT, March 18, after their @Space_Station mission and successful splashdown earlier this afternoon.”
“Welcome home, Butch, Suni, Nick, & Aleksandr!” it added.
“What a ride,” Hague told mission control, per Reuters. “I see a capsule full of grins, ear to ear.”
Wilmore and Williams were in space 286 days, which was 278 days longer than expected. They circled Earth 4,576 times and traveled a total of 121 million miles, the Associated Press reported.
“This has been nine months in the making, and I couldn’t be prouder of our team’s versatility, our team’s ability to adapt and really build for the future of human spaceflight,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said.
