With election day less than a month away, it’s a good idea to start thinking about your voting plan. Some choose to vote at the polls, others by mail, but what happens for those up in space, far, far away from polling places and the Postal Service? Thanks to a combination of tech and thoughtful coordination, NASA astronauts are able to perform their civic duty by casting absentee ballots from low orbit.
Much like other data transmitted between the International Space Station and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the astronauts’ electronic ballots go through the Space Communication and Navigation Program, which is a network of satellites that communicate with an antenna on Earth — or more precisely, in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Instead of being sealed in an envelope, the ballots are encrypted (accessible only to the astronaut and clerk) and get transferred to the Mission Control Center, where the county clerk processes them. This effort to ensure astronauts have “the opportunity to participate in democracy” has been underway since 1997.
“It’s a very important duty that we have as citizens and [we’re] looking forward to being able to vote from space, which is pretty cool,” Sunita Williams, one of the astronauts stranded on the space station until February, told reporters last month.
