Astronauts are actually capable of carry fashionable smartphones on house missions, in accordance with an X publish from NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. The coverage will start with the SpaceX Crew-12 and Artemis II missions.
The SpaceX Crew-12 mission launched on Feb. 13 and carried 4 astronauts to the Worldwide Area Station, docking on Feb. 14. NASA’s Artemis II mission is anticipated to launch in March; it’ll ship 4 astronauts on a 10-day flight that can circle the moon and return to Earth.
“We’re giving our crews the instruments to seize particular moments for his or her households and share inspiring photographs and video with the world,” Isaacman wrote.
NASA astronauts will quickly fly with the most recent smartphones, starting with Crew-12 and Artemis II. We’re giving our crews the instruments to seize particular moments for his or her households and share inspiring photographs and video with the world. Simply as vital, we challenged long-standing…
— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) February 5, 2026
An Apple consultant famous in an electronic mail to CNET that this was “the primary time [the] iPhone has been absolutely certified for prolonged use in orbit and past.”
“Till now, astronauts had been largely restricted to legacy cameras and older imaging tools,” the spokesperson mentioned.
NASA didn’t point out particular cellphone manufacturers or fashions in its publish.
Ars Technica reported that house missions at the moment use 2016 Nikon DSLR and GoPro cameras.
Images has performed an vital function in house missions because the Apollo missions of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies. Apollo 11 astronauts, the primary people to step on the moon, captured iconic pictures of their famed July 1969 mission with specifically modified Hasselblad cameras.
