NASA is preparing to let spacefarers carry the same pocket computers that rule life on Earth, with Crew-12 astronauts set to be the first government crew cleared to bring modern smartphones into orbit as personal devices. The shift, announced by Administrator Jared Isaacman alongside plans for Artemis 2, signals a cultural and technical break from an era when every gadget on a spacecraft was custom built and tightly locked down. It is not just a lifestyle perk for astronauts, it is a test of whether consumer technology can safely sit at the heart of human spaceflight.
The move arrives as NASA leans harder on commercial hardware and private partners, from launch vehicles to life-support components. Allowing iPhones and Android phones into the cabin extends that logic to the most intimate layer of technology, the tools astronauts use to think, communicate and unwind. If it works, the smartphone could become the new Swiss Army knife of space missions, blending camera, notebook, AI assistant and morale booster in a single slab of glass.
The policy shift that puts a phone in every flight suit
Administrator Jared Isaacman has framed the smartphone decision as part of a broader modernization push, telling audiences that starting with Crew-12 and the Artemis 2 mission, astronauts will be allowed to carry contemporary iPhone and Android devices alongside standard-issue gear. NASA has long restricted personal electronics on spacecraft, in part to control electromagnetic interference and in part to keep mission software on rigorously certified platforms. By explicitly tying the new policy to both a long-duration Crew flight and a high-profile lunar flyby, Isaacman is signaling that smartphones are no longer fringe experiments but tools the agency expects to coexist with mission-critical systems.
The outlines of the policy are still emerging, with The USA TODAY Network noting that it has asked NASA for more detail on how these phones will be used and what limits will apply to their connectivity and apps during flight. What is clear is that NASA leadership sees the change as a way to align astronaut life with the expectations of a generation raised on constant mobile access, even as the agency prepares to send crews back toward the surface of the moon from Florida and eventually to the lunar South Pole. That combination of cultural catch-up and deep-space ambition is why the smartphone decision feels less like a gimmick and more like a statement about where human spaceflight is headed.
From Nexus S to Ax-3: smartphones’ long road to “personal” status
Although Crew-12 will be the first NASA crew formally allowed to pack their own phones, the idea of smartphones in orbit is not new. As far back as Jul 2011, NASA engineers were flying a Nexus S handset as the First Smartphone Cleared, wiring it into the free-flying SPHERES robots to give them more onboard computing power and sensors. That project treated the phone as a component inside a larger system, not as something an astronaut would slip into a pocket, but it proved that consumer-grade chips and cameras could survive microgravity and radiation long enough to be useful.
NASA then pushed the concept further with its Small Spacecraft Technology Program and the PhoneSat effort at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, which turned off-the-shelf handsets into tiny satellites. Two PhoneSat 1.0 spacecraft, named Alexander and Graham, orbited Earth before reentering on April 27, 2013, demonstrating that a smartphone core could run a complete spacecraft bus for short missions, as documented in the PhoneSat program history. More recently, commercial missions have quietly normalized handhelds in orbit, with veteran astronaut Michael López-Alegría explaining that Ax-3 was only the second private crew to carry smartphones and that The NASA Expedition crews still did not take them as personal items, a contrast he highlighted in a Yes video. Crew-12’s policy shift effectively brings NASA’s own long-duration crews in line with that private-sector reality.
Why NASA is betting on pocket tech now
NASA officials have described the smartphone decision as part of a deliberate effort to challenge long-standing certification processes and qualify modern hardware on a faster timeline, arguing that the agency cannot afford to let its tools lag a decade behind what people use on the ground. One internal summary put it bluntly, saying that “Just as important, we challenged long-standing processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight on an expedited timeline,” a sentiment reflected in Just this broader push to prepare for operations on the lunar South Pole. In that light, smartphones are less about selfies and more about proving that NASA can integrate fast-evolving commercial electronics into missions without waiting years for bespoke designs.
There is also a human factor. NASA’s own messaging has leaned into the idea that people are used to seeing Earth and the depths of the universe through the lenses of their phones, and that it is time for that pocket-sized revolution to reach orbit. One social post framed the change by noting that NASA announced over a weekend that it was finally letting progress that had been stuck on the ground ride along with crews, a sentiment captured in an While the description of how people already relate to images of Earth and the cosmos. The subtext is clear: if astronauts are to serve as relatable ambassadors for exploration, giving them the same storytelling tools as everyone else is a logical, even overdue, step.
Artemis 2, Crew-12 and the astronauts who will live with this change
The timing of the smartphone green light is no accident. NASA says Crew-12 and the Artemis missions launching in Florida will be the first to operate under the new rules, with Administrator Jared Isaacman explicitly tying the policy to the crews who will take iPhone and Android devices into space as they prepare for lunar flights. That linkage, described in detail in a NASA briefing, suggests that smartphones are being treated as part of the toolkit for a new generation of exploration rather than a side experiment tacked onto low Earth orbit.
On the Artemis 2 side, the crew is already a carefully chosen mix of experience and fresh perspective. About the Artemis 2 Crew This will not be the first flight to space for NASA astronauts, and Each of the American members has extensive experience, while the mission will mark a first trip beyond Earth for the Canadian Jeremy Hansen, as outlined in an About the Artemis profile. For that group, smartphones could become informal training aids, from checklists and language apps to augmented-reality star charts, even if NASA ultimately locks down which functions are allowed in flight. The real test will be whether these devices stay in the background or subtly reshape how crews plan their days and interact with mission control.
Risks, safeguards and the quiet AI revolution on orbit
Letting personal phones into a spacecraft is not as simple as waving them through security. Engineers have to worry about radiation flipping bits in memory, batteries behaving unpredictably in vacuum, and unsecured apps creating new cyberattack surfaces. NASA’s history with PhoneSat and related projects shows that the agency has already studied how consumer devices behave in orbit, with the Small Spacecraft Technology Program and Ames Research Center in Moffett Field using those missions to map out failure modes and lifetimes, as chronicled in the Small Spacecraft Technology documentation. On top of that, earlier work turning a smartphone into the core of a satellite business, led by Boshuizen and his colleague Will Marshall after Having seen the phone schtick before in a talk by Klupar, showed that with the right shielding and software, phones can deliver increasingly greater capabilities in space, a trajectory detailed in a Boshuizen and case study.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
