Nasa Astronauts Can Now Bring Their Phones With Them On Their Mission To The Moon

Get fresh for immoderate selfies that are retired of this world. NASA astronauts will beryllium allowed to bring their smartphones to abstraction for nan first time, starting pinch nan Crew-12 and Artemis II missions.

Crew II is expected to caput to nan International Space Station next week, while nan highly anticipated Artemis II ngo — which will bring humans astir nan moon for nan first clip since nan 1960s — was delayed until March.

“We are giving our crews nan devices to seizure typical moments for their families and stock inspiring images and video pinch nan world,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote connected X.

With nan newest iPhones and Android devices astatine hand, nan unit will beryllium capable to beryllium a spot much spontaneous pinch image and video gathering, meaning that for those of america backmost home, these upcoming trips to abstraction could extremity up being immoderate of NASA’s astir well-documented journeys yet.

Imagine really cool (or cringe-worthy) it will beryllium if astronauts move themselves into TikTok stars successful zero gravity, aliases if they return ultra-wide-angle selfies successful nan spacecraft. For those moving successful authorities bureaucracy, it’s arsenic exciting, apparently, that NASA approved this norm alteration beautiful quickly.

“Just arsenic important, we challenged long-standing processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight connected an expedited timeline,” Isaacman wrote. “That operational urgency will service NASA good arsenic we prosecute nan highest-value subject and investigation successful orbit and connected nan lunar surface.”

It makes consciousness that it would beryllium difficult to o.k. caller exertion to spell into abstraction — if 1 mini point is astray, a spaceflight tin spell terribly wrong. Until now, nan newest cameras that were expected to spell connected these missions were decade-old Nikon DSLRs and GoPros, according to Ars Technica. That’s by nary intends arcane, but there’s thing much spontaneous and whimsical astir utilizing a smartphone.

This is not, however, nan first clip that smartphones person gone to space. SpaceX allowed smartphones for its private astronaut missions.