Wednesday was a big day in history–no, we’re not talking about Apple’s 50th anniversary celebration or the launch of the AirPods Max 2. We’re talking about the Artemis II space mission, which took some special guests on its trip to orbit the moon.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft launched on Wednesday afternoon, and among the high-tech devices the Orion astronauts took with them are iPhone 17 Pros. While smartphones have been used by passengers on private “space” trips, back in February, NASA cleared the way for astronauts to take smartphones to space for the first time, as a way to validate NASA’s requirements for the technology it uses. And it didn’t take long for iPhones to make an appearance.
Community space journalist Owen Sparks spotted the iPhone in a couple of video clips from NASA and posted them to X.com. The first video shows the astronauts preparing for the mission as a NASA assistant places a smartphone inside the pocket of a suit. Sparks identifies it as an iPhone, but since we don’t see the back, it’s difficult to identify the actual phone in the clip.
The other clips are clearer. One shows the cabin of the Orion, and one of the astronauts passes a phone by floating it to their crew member. The phone turns, and you’ll recognize the three-camera bump that you’ll find on the iPhone 17 Pro. It looks like a silver model, not Cosmic Orange (what a missed opportunity). If you look closely, you’ll see a black circle on the right side below the plateau. It’s not some secret camera that they’re testing for Apple. Sparks speculates that it’s a velcro patch used to stick the iPhone to their suits and other points on the ship to keep them in place in zero gravity.
Apple has yet to comment on the current mission. Back in February, Apple remarked that NASA’s approval “will mark the first time the iPhone has been fully qualified for extended use in orbit and beyond.” The iPhone actually made its first space voyage in 2011 when two iPhone 4s were on the space shuttle, but they weren’t for general use. Rather, those phones were loaded with an app that contained four step-by-step instruction programs to help the space station’s crew perform experiments in the U.S. portion of the orbiting outpost, according to Space.com.
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.