Smartphones in space — the Artemis II crew are throwing an iPhone around in zero gravity

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NASA now allows personal phones in space

An astronaut in the ISS looking at Earth
(Image credit: NASA)
  • NASA now allows personal smartphones in space, and the first such mission has launched
  • A video shows the Artemis II crew throwing an iPhone in zero gravity
  • Other videos also provide a glimpse of astronauts using iPhones

It’s a big day for NASA, as the Artemis II mission has launched, sending four astronauts on a trip around the moon — a journey that will take them further from Earth than anyone has been in over 50 years. But this — along with the Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station — is also the first time NASA astronauts have been allowed to bring personal smartphones with them.

That means it’s the first time that iPhones and Android handsets will have been carried into space on NASA missions, and we’re already seeing some of the fun that’s being had with them.

In a series of posts on X, @OwenSparks shared some brief clips of the crew using iPhones. In one, an iPhone is being tossed to someone in zero gravity, while in another, one of the astronauts — Christina Koch — is filming Victor Glover piloting the spacecraft.

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There’s also a third clip, showing iPhones being packed into the suits of the crew before liftoff.

What comes next is more exciting

But fun as these clips are, I’m more excited for what comes next — with this mission taking the crew around the moon, we could soon have close-up moon shots from the same phones that most of us use every day, so that will be interesting to see.

And smartphones can be used on missions going forward, too, so Artemis II won’t be the last we see of them in space.

Plus, while it seems this mission has favored iPhones, it’s likely that sooner or later an astronaut will show us what an Android phone is capable of on a trip to space as well.

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James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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