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Hewlett-Packard iPAQ h5550 Pocket PCs are being used in space by the Expedition 9 astronaut and cosmonaut crew aboard the International Space Station Soyuz 8 space craft.

The iPAQs will be used as mobile productivity tools to record daily crew procedures, write personal memos and check e-mail and calendars. The space crew will also be able to listen to music, view photos from home and read e-books. The devices will remain aboard the space station and be reconfigured for each new crew. For the next flight, two additional iPAQs are expected to launch to the station for a total of four iPAQs.

Ground support at NASA's Johnson Space Center and Russia's Star City Space Center will use the iPAQ Pocket PCs during the training process and to evaluate new applications for future flight crews to use.

The HP iPAQ h5550, passing NASA's stringent flight certification tests with flying colors, required few modifications by the space agency's engineering team. In addition to the iPAQ h5550 units, NASA received rechargeable batteries, PC Card Expansion Packs, barcode scanners and Secure Digital memory cards for later use on the space station.

In the future, HP iPAQ h5550 devices will be outfitted with barcode scanners and NASA-developed software to inventory equipment on the International Space Station.