Two dolphins dive to the right of the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft, which had just splashed down off the coast of Florida.
Suspended by four large orange-and-white parachutes, the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft touches down gently in the blue ocean of the coast of Florida.
A drone shot of the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon capsule floating in the ocean surrounded by a pod of dolphins.
Suspended by four large orange-and-white parachutes, the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft touches down gently in the blue ocean of the coast of Florida. The drone pans right as the chutes drift down.
Dolphins x Astronauts:
The collab we didn’t know we needed
A pod of curious dolphins added extra meaning and porpoise to the recovery of Crew-9′s SpaceX Dragon capsule and its four explorers shortly after splashdown.
Inside the capsule were astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who splashed down off the coast of Florida at 5:57pm ET (2127 UTC) on March 18, 2025, concluding their scientific mission to the International Space Station.
See Crew-9 return from deorbit to splashdown in this video. (The dolphins appear at 1:33:56.)