Overview
- Commander Reid Wiseman held up his iPhone 17 Pro Max on the live stream during the lunar flyby approach to show a close-up he shot at 8x zoom that Mission Control identified as the Chebyshev crater.
- NASA has been posting mission images on its official channels and confirmed that several Earth photos released this week were taken on iPhone 17 Pro Max handsets aboard Orion.
- Image file data reviewed by media shows some of the iPhone shots used the front-facing camera and were lightly edited in Adobe Lightroom before release.
- Each astronaut received an iPhone as part of a push to qualify modern consumer hardware for spaceflight on a faster timeline, with reporters noting Apple was not involved in the approval process.
- The crew is documenting the trip with iPhones, Nikon DSLRs, and GoPros as teams manage minor issues such as Outlook email glitches and a suspected frozen urine vent line while Orion arcs home on its free-return path.