NASA’s final shuttle mission will feature outer space’s first iPhone, tricked out with an app to measure spacecraft radiation levels, orbital location and altitude.

The iOS-based software, called SpaceLab, will come pre-loaded on two iPhone 4s. Testing the software isn’t mission-critical, but it may lead to terrestrial commercial devices being repurposed for space in the near future.

“When Apple added gyros to the iPhone, it suddenly became a small avionics platform,” said Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, the company that designed SpaceLab. “You can imagine using it to do b...