If you watched the Crew Dragon return to Earth from the ISS on Sunday, you may have noticed in the cabin footage that the astronauts on board the space module are using tablets. The more astute of you will have also discovered through its unlock interface or home screen that these are factory tablets. Applu – specifically iPads miniHow do tablets help astronauts?
Their main job on board is to quickly provide the necessary information to the astronauts through various digital manuals created for certain situations during space flights. So if they run into trouble or just need to check something, they just need to look at the iPad and they should be clear about it. Quite interestingly, while in the past rocket controls were based on classic physical buttons, in Crew Dragon you could notice a modern cockpit with touch controls, which in essence resembled the controls on an iPad. That's why the crew's spacesuits had to be adapted precisely to the touch control - or rather, the gloves that the astronauts wore during the trip. In addition, a special pocket appeared on the spacesuits, in which the astronauts can put their tablets so that they can always be with them if necessary.
For example, the tablet appears in the video at 49:30:
Nothing is perfect
However, even the best technology is not perfect, as the astronauts themselves learned upon their return. Bob Behnken was annoyed by a SpaceX app on his iPad that was supposed to show him the flight timeline. Instead, it showed an error message that referred to a malfunctioning Safari because of the internet connection. Because of this, it later turned out to be a problem to capture the latest space images via tablets, as neither the astronauts nor the control center were sure whether they would be saved as they needed. The whole problem wasonec successfully resolved by forwarding photos and apparently screenshotat the timeline from Behnken's iPad via AirDrop his colleague Dough Hurley.
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It is clear that by the next Crew Dragon flight, SpaceX will try to remove all the flies that plagued the astronauts (and not only) on their iPads during the flight. Whether and, by extension, how they will succeed, is almost up to us. 100% Tablets for space travel are certainly specially modified in terms of software and hardware, so that they are completely resistant to any attempt to hack them and at the same time have no problems with functionality in space. nestandard conditions in which their manufacturer should not haveancEven so, it is in a way amazing that devices that many of us have at home and often use for trivial tasks such as watching YouTube or FacebookIt will be an important part of spaceflight.
Great that they use technology to maximum. But if such an iPad contains manuals to be used in critical situations, then it is absurd that they have to unlock it for a few seconds (in a non-critical situation) by typing a numerical code. :-/
That's just forcarek, next time they'll fly straight on iPads.
A friend of mine flew into orbit on an iPad and it flew better than a 250000 rocket.
Sure, that makes sense. They just have to finish replenishing the energy that will be needed for the flight itself. With the included 0,3W charger, the iPad would lose its warranty before the first takeoff.