iPhone 4 Is Headed To Space On Final Space Shuttle Mission
A pair of iPhone 4s running an experimental science app are heading for the International Space Station next month, it was just announced at Apple’s WWDC.
Two iPhone 4s certified for space travel will be on board Space Shuttle Atlantis, the shuttle fleet’s historic final mission, STS-135.
Due to take off from Cape Canaveral on July 8 the iPhone 4s will be running the SpaceLab for iOS app from Odyssey Space Research, which will be used for space research. They will remain on the ISS for several months for the crew to conduct a series of experiments.
Among other things, the app will help ISS astronauts find their relative position is space by matching pictures of the Earth taken with the iPhone’s camera to a database of coastline maps in the app.
A $0.99 “terrestrial” version of SpaceLab for iOS app is available today from the App Store. According to the company: “Flight data from the experiments are expected to be collected, analyzed, and then shared via this app on the App Store.”
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: 
