New Delhi, March 19 -- NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams returned to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship 'Freedom', alongside fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

NASA and SpaceX's Crew-9 astronauts streaked through the atmosphere before deploying parachutes for a gentle splashdown off the Florida coast at 5:57 pm (3:30 am IST) on March 19.

Drogue and main parachutes were deployed before the splashdown off the coast of Florida near Tallahassee.

After the slow splashdown, the Crew-9 had some "surprise visitors": A pod of dolphins.

As they landed on Earth, recovery teams helped the crew out of Dragon, a standard process for all crew members after returning from long-duration missions....