NASA’s Artemis II mission is one of the biggest spaceflight milestones in decades. Seeing old clips of astronauts going to space has its own nostalgic vibe, but the first videos coming out of the capsule have a much more familiar energy. The crew can be seen tossing around iPhones in zero gravity inside Orion, giving the historic mission a strangely modern feel.
This contrast is what makes the footage so distinct. Artemis II is the first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years, and taking a gadget that millions of people already use is a relatable touch.
The iPhone is not the mission, but it is the moment
The clips themselves are not some giant NASA reveal. They are just short glimpses of astronauts settling into life in microgravity and, naturally, messing around with the physics of floating objects. But seeing an iPhone drifting through the cabin instantly makes the whole thing feel less abstract.
An iPhone floating across the cockpit just cuts through all the mission patches and NASA’s giant control panels. And honestly, it just adds to its charm.
The historic flight with a 2026 detail
Artemis II launched on April 1 with a four-person crew aboard the Orion spacecraft for a roughly 10-day mission around the moon and back. The crew includes Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, and the flight is NASA’s first crewed journey beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo.
It is history in the making once again. And a small part of it is the iPhone that will be used to take pictures of the moon from close up.
Seeing astronauts playing around with an iPhone on a moon mission is oddly grounding. It does not make Artemis II any less significant. It just makes the mission feel more ‘real’.