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    • How astronauts vote from space
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    How astronauts vote from space

    Sakege Posted on

    Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore plan to vote from the International Space Station. They are among four American astronauts aboard the outpost who may want to do so.

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    • Astronauts have voted in US elections since 1997, when the Texas Legislature passed a bill allowing NASA astronauts to cast their votes from orbit.
    • Like any other voter, astronauts can fill out an application to request an absentee ballot and are provided with an electronic form.
    • Ballots filled out in space are then transmitted to Earth in the same way that most data is transmitted from the space station to mission control.

    As millions of Americans who have not yet voted early are preparing Tuesday to head to their local polling placesa select few will be Casting your votes from 250 miles above Earth.

    Just because a handful of American astronauts won’t be able to go to their local schools, churches and recreation centers to vote. the 2024 presidential elections It doesn’t mean they can’t still make their voices heard. That’s because for nearly 20 years, NASA has implemented a plan that allows space travelers to fulfill their civic duty from orbit.

    Before the November 5 elections, four Americans are in space who may want to vote. That includes the two astronauts of the Boeing Starliner who originally thought they would return to Earth in time to vote in person before their spaceship was sent home without them.

    The voting process from the International Space Station may be familiar to absentee voters, but of course, it’s a little more complicated. As NASA explainsVoting from orbit involves encrypted ballots flowing from satellites to a ground antenna before being received by county clerks to be counted.

    Here’s everything you need to know about how astronauts vote from space:

    Who on the International Space Station might want to vote for the president?

    On September 30, American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov They became the newest space travelers to reach the International Space Stationjoining Expedition 72.

    Of the seven people aboard the orbital outpost, Hague is now among four Americans who will be in space during the election, also including Don Pettit, who He arrived with two cosmonauts in September.and Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

    A few months ago, Williams and Wilmore expressed their intention to vote from space.

    “It’s a very important role that we all play as citizens to be included in those elections, and NASA makes it very easy for us,” Wilmore told reporters. during a press conference on September 13 from the space station.

    Williams added: “I’m looking forward to being able to vote from space, which is great.”

    Williams and Wilmore They were only supposed to be at the space station for 10 days when they arrived in June as part of the first crewed test flight of the Boeing Starliner, which NASA hopes to commission for regular orbital trips. But now that NASA has sent the Starliner back to Earth empty after deeming the vehicle unsafe for the crew, Wilmore and Williams will return in February. on a SpaceX dragon with Hague and Gorbunov.

    The first astronaut votes from space in 1997

    Before the space station era, American astronauts were not away from Earth long enough to miss the exercise of their civic duty.

    That changed in 1996, when astronaut John Blaha was unable to vote in that year’s presidential race between President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. NPR reported in 2020. At the time, Blaha was serving on Russia’s Mir Space Station, predecessor to the International Space Station.

    Because most NASA astronauts live in Houston, Texas lawmakers who learned of Blaha’s inability to hold a vote were quick to take action. A year later, in 1997, then-Gov. George W. Bush signed the legislature bill into law, creating a measure within the Texas Administrative Code allowing early voting from space, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum explained in 2020.

    That same year, astronaut David Wolf became the first American to cast his vote from the former Mir (or “vote while you float“, as NASA joked.

    “It’s something that, you know, you might or might not expect to mean a lot,” Wolf said. NPR in 2008. “But when you’re so far away from your planet, the little things have a big impact.”

    Who else has voted from space?

    The process hasn’t changed much in the years since.

    Mir was decommissioned and deorbited in 2001 to make way for the International Space Station, which now serves as a polling location for astronauts (they even list its addresses as “low Earth orbit,” according to the Smithsonian).

    Since Wolf pioneered voting from space, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins He has also cast his vote from orbit; in fact, twice. Rubins first voted in the 2016 presidential election from the International Space Station and then cast his cosmic vote again in 2020. according to nasa.

    nasa astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli They also voted in March as Texas residents from the space station, filling out electronic absentee ballots.

    How do astronauts vote on the space station?

    Like any other voter, astronauts can fill out an application to request an absentee ballot and are provided with an electronic form that can be recognizable to any American who casts a vote that way.

    Once the forms are connected to Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, astronauts use unique credentials to access the ballot and cast their votes from the space station, according to NASA.

    Ballots filled out in space are then transmitted to Earth in the same way that most data is transmitted from the space station to mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Votes cast on space travel through NASA Near space networka fleet of antenna systems and relay satellites that provide communication and navigation services to the space station.

    After the ballots are encrypted and uploaded to the space station’s onboard computer system, they are sent via a data tracking and relay satellite to a ground antenna at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The space agency then transfers the ballots to mission control in Houston, who delivers them to the county clerks responsible for processing them.

    Astronauts may not get the coveted “I Voted” sticker, but they can claim something much more interesting: Voting in zero gravity is better than voting at the local community center.

    One version of this story was last posted March 5.

    Eric Lagatta covers the latest news and trends for USA TODAY. Contact him at [email protected]

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