US space agency NASA has plans to send Apple’s iPhone 4 to the International Space Station when it will launch shuttle Atlantis later this year.

Houston-based Odyssey Space Research has created an application for the iPhone 4 to be used for research in the space.

According to Odyssey Space Research’s chief Brian Rishikof, the iPhone 4 has the potential to replace more costly devices that are purpose built for space research.

Rishikof added that the Odyssey app would be used by teachers, scientists and other earthlings to recreate the experiments as if onboard the International Space Station itself.

Onboard astraunouts will use the iPhone 4 to capture photographs of the Earth, and use an overlay picture to match an arc to the horizon.

The experiment will allow researchers to see the effects of radiation on the handset. In addition, a sensor calibration experiment will blend information from references images with the iPhone’s sensor readings to better calibrate the handset’s gyroscope and accelerometer.