Most people don’t leave their phones behind when they go on a road trip, but NASA astronauts had to leave their phones on Earth while they went to work 250 miles away at the International Space Station. That is, until now.
In a post onNASA Administrator Jared Isaacman shared that the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts will be allowed to take smartphones for the journey to the ISS and beyond. “We give our teams the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and videos with the world,” Isaacman said.
Even if they will not be the first images of smartphones captured in space – that distinction belongs to a trio of miniature telephone satellites sent into Earth orbit in 2013 which succeeded where the first British STRaND-1 project failed. But thanks to the next Artemis II Missionwe can look forward to the first smartphone images taken from the Moon’s orbit. The March launch (for now) will be the agency’s first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The crews’ personal devices will be much less cumbersome to use than the old Nikon DSLR they were previously limited to high-quality still images. Ideally, this means more spontaneous photos that can be shared with friends and family on Earth.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-will-now-allow-astronauts-to-take-their-smartphones-to-space-151310548.html?src=rss
