Some time after yesterday’s landing on Gulf of Mexico of the Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts, a pod of dolphins surrounded the SpaceX spacecraft.

Among the capsule’s occupants who received this unusual welcome were Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, American astronauts who have finally returned to Earth after completing nine months on International Space Station (ISS), instead of the eight days originally planned for their stay!

The capsule that finally brought them back, along with American astronaut Nick Haig and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, landed without incident off the coast of Florida just before 6 p.m. Tuesday (local time – midnight GMT).

When they boarded Elon Musk’s company’s spacecraft earlier that day, the four astronauts had no idea that a marine…welcoming committee of cute dolphins would be waiting for them.

Their unexpected presence was commented on by Kate Tice, head of quality systems engineering, who was speaking at the time on SpaceX’s livestream.

“On your screen you see dolphins, wanting to get close to the Dragon to play with it,” Tice can be heard saying, shortly after the first fins appear around the capsule.

The dolphins – about six in number – remained around the area for several minutes as the SpaceX recovery crew checked the area for hazardous fumes and prepared to transfer the spacecraft to a barge.

Nine months in space

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June, aboard a Boeing Starliner. They were supposed to stay there for eight days, but technical problems forced the US space agency to change its plans.

The Starliner‘s technical problems forced NASA to turn to Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. In late September, NASA and SpaceX sent two astronauts into space instead of four, as originally planned, in order to leave open seats for Wilmore and Williams on the return trip.

The latter were waiting for the next crew change on the International Space Station, originally scheduled for February and then rescheduled for mid-March, in order to leave the space lab.