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Get ready for some selfies that are out of this world. NASA astronauts will be allowed to bring their smartphones to space for the first time, starting with the Crew-12 and Artemis II missions.
Crew-12 is expected to head to the International Space Station next week, while the highly anticipated Artemis II mission — which will bring humans around the moon for the first time since the 1960s — was delayed until March.
“We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on X.
With the newest iPhones and Android devices at hand, the crew will be able to be a bit more spontaneous with image and video gathering, meaning that for those of us back home, these upcoming trips to space could end up being some of NASA’s most well-documented journeys yet.
Imagine how cool (or cringe-worthy) it will be if astronauts turn themselves into TikTok stars in zero gravity, or if they take ultra-wide-angle selfies in the spacecraft. For those working in government bureaucracy, it’s equally exciting, apparently, that NASA approved this rule change pretty quickly.
“Just as important, we challenged long-standing processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight on an expedited timeline,” Isaacman wrote. “That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface.”
It makes sense that it would be hard to approve new technology to go into space — if one small thing goes astray, a spaceflight can go terribly wrong. Until now, the newest cameras that were supposed to go on these missions were decade-old Nikon DSLRs and GoPros, according to Ars Technica. That’s by no means arcane, but there’s something more spontaneous and whimsical about using a smartphone.
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This is not, however, the first time that smartphones have gone to space. SpaceX allowed smartphones for its private astronaut missions.
