A unusual question emerges as the US prepares for general elections in November: how would NASA astronauts vote from 46 kilometers above the planet?
Voting early or by absentee votes is an option for astronauts stationed on the International Space Station (ISS), and it is arranged via their home county clerk’s office.
Thanks to NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) mission, this creative process is feasible.
An electronic vote completed by an astronaut on board the space station is transmitted to a ground antenna at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, using the agency’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System.
The ballot is then safely sent by NASA to the Mission Control Center at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it is processed by the county clerk.
The ballot is protected by encryption and only the astronomer and the clerk can access it, protecting the integrity of the vote.
Astronauts on the International orbit Station may electronically distribute votes from orbit and interact with Earth thanks to NASA’s Near Space Network.
Voting from orbit depends on data transfer, much as other ISS-to-mission control connections.
Votes from space are transmitted via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and are overseen by the Near Space Network.
This network provides essential interaction and navigation services, especially for the space station, to missions that are located within 1.2 million miles of Earth.
Astronauts who are stationed overseas like any other American must apply for their absentee ballots via a Federal Post Card Application.
This technique guarantees people remain active in the democratic system while in orbit.
From 1997, after the Texas Legislature enacted a measure enabling astronauts to cast ballots from space, they have been able to participate in American elections.
In that particular year, NASA astronaut David Wolf, who was stationed on the Mir Space Station, became the first American to cast a ballot while in orbit.
