Apple hardware has gone into orbit, starting with shuttle-era experiments, through a long exclusion, and now a controlled return on Artemis II. Here’s how and when iPhone, Mac Portable, and more have made trips to space over more than four decades.
Apple products in space
Apple products in space
NASA entered the Shuttle era in 1981 as commercial computing shifted from command-line systems to graphical interfaces. Engineers used off-the-shelf computers to study how crews interacted with software in microgravity, where input methods behaved differently than on Earth.
Early Shuttle experiments unfolded during a brief period when integration barriers remained low. Crews and engineers saw how quickly standard interfaces broke down once gravity was no longer part of the equation.