Overview
- The policy is now in effect, making SpaceX’s upcoming Crew-12 mission the first NASA flight permitted to carry modern smartphones to the International Space Station.
- Artemis II, scheduled to orbit the Moon next month, is also cleared to include crew smartphones under the updated guidelines.
- Apple confirmed the iPhone is among the approved devices, though neither NASA nor Apple disclosed specific models.
- NASA says it challenged long‑standing processes and expedited hardware qualification to address risks such as electromagnetic interference, radiation exposure, outgassing, vibration and battery hazards.
- Crew-12 is slated to fly NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA’s Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev on a roughly nine-month ISS mission, a shift that follows years of restricting personal devices and relying on older cameras like a 2016 Nikon DSLR.