NASA Will Now Allow Astronauts to Bring Their Smartphones into Space. Here's What That Means

The first crew permitted to leave Earth's orbit with their personal phones launched on Friday, Feb. 13

NEED TO KNOW

• NASA astronauts can now bring their smartphones into space
• The new policy will allow space crews to capture more personalized images while on missions
• The first crew to take their phones outside of Earth’s orbit launched on Friday, Feb. 13

NASA astronauts are now able to take their smartphones into space — a historic first for the agency.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced the news in a post on X, sharing that astronauts on the Crew-12 and Artemis II missions will be the first to take their phones beyond Earth.

“We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world,” he wrote in the post.

He added that the new policy breaks down old norms for the agency, which he said is a “step in the right direction” overall.

“Just as important, we challenged long-standing processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight on an expedited timeline. That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface,” he wrote.

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While astronauts will now be able to take more personalized photos during space travel, they will still be unable to send those photos directly to friends and family, as there is no internet or cellular service in space. Instead, they must upload the photos to devices on the spacecraft, and then send those photos to NASA via satellite and encoded data. 

NASA can then decode the data and share the images with the world via social media and public forums.

Previous to this, NASA crew members took photos with more cumbersome digital cameras, per Engadget.com.

Crew-12, the first mission to depart Earth with phones on board, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Friday, Feb. 13, per NASA.

The four people on board — American astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — are headed to the International Space Station on a scientific exploration mission.

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Artemis II is expected to launch no earlier than March and will entail NASA’s first lunar flyby in 50 years, per the agency. The four-person mission will consist of astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and marks “a key step toward long-term return to the Moon and future missions to Mars,” according to NASA.

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