Featured Image Credit: Handout / Handout / Getty
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are back on Earth, but their return had an unexpected welcoming committee.
Yesterday, rescue crews came to the aid of the NASA astronauts as they were quickly rushed away on stretchers.
Since the landing was all caught on camera, viewers were treated to a spectacular moment as a small pod of curious dolphins circled the capsule.
This unexpected encounter felt like nature’s own way of celebrating the end of their 286-day mission in space.
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Video footage showed four or five dolphins swimming around the spacecraft, offering a warm welcome to the NASA astronauts - which also included fellow astronauts Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The space agency commentators joked that the greeting dolphins were an 'honorary part of the recovery team.'
Dolphin cam!!! pic.twitter.com/K250W8CEzp
— Ellie in Space 🚀💫 (@esherifftv) March 18, 2025
Amazed viewers have been sharing clips and standstills on social media of what is being called a 'beautiful welcome' home.
One viewer posted on X (formerly Twitter): "Dolphin cam!!!" with a screenshot of the moment.
"Visited by dolphins when you come back from Space has to be a good feeling!" one X user replied.
"The dolphins greeting our astronauts was absolutely moving; a beautiful moment amidst chaos!" a comment read.
Another added: "This is so cool!" whilst someone else joked: "I figure the Dolphins know the mission of SpaceX. I'll bet they are excited to have the conscious expansion to Mars!"
The NASA crew of four undocked from the ISS at 5.05am GMT on Tuesday, mere seconds after their expected landing time.
Wilmore and Williams were originally supposed to spend just eight days aboard the ISS after launching on Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule in June 2024.
However, technical issues left the spacecraft unable to return safely, forcing them to stay aboard for months longer than planned. While the return went smoothly, SpaceX founder Elon Musk admitted there was always a real risk that things could have gone very wrong.
"You could have a first stage failure, a second stage failure, a stage separation failure, the Dragon could fail to separate from the rocket, the trunk could fail to separate from Dragon, there could be an engine failure on the spacecraft itself," the Tesla CEO explained.
"When it's coming back, it's coming in so fast, it's a blazing meteor, and if anything happens to the heat shield, the whole craft is going to disintegrate."
Thankfully, everything went smoothly, and the pair now have a long road ahead of them in recovery.
