NASA astronauts Anil Menon, Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins voted in the U.S. midterm elections while aboard the International Space Station, Menon said on Nov. 3. The three Americans completed electronic ballots and sent them securely to election officials.
In a video shared on X, Menon showed his ISS room, which served as his voting booth. He said he used a computer there to fill out an electronic form and send it to Harris County, Texas. Most NASA astronauts register to vote in the county, which is home to Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA’s process begins with an astronaut requesting an absentee ballot. Once completed in orbit, the electronic ballot travels through the agency’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground antenna at White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. NASA then transfers it to Mission Control at Johnson Space Center and on to the county clerk. The ballot is encrypted and can be accessed only by the astronaut and the clerk, according to NASA.
Voting from space has been possible since Texas passed a law allowing it in 1997. NASA astronaut David Wolf was the first to use the provision, casting a ballot from Russia’s Mir space station that year.
Delaney and Watkins arrived at the ISS on Oct. 1 aboard SpaceX’s Crew-13 mission. Menon has been at the station since mid-July, after traveling there aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They share the orbiting laboratory with four other crew members, none of whom are identified in the report as voting in the U.S. election.
Sources: Space.com.