Even astronauts can vote from space. Here's how

Ben Kesslen
·1-min read
Photo: NASA
Photo: NASA

Just because you went to space doesn’t mean you forfeited your right to vote.

American astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were able to add their voices to the more than 160 million people expected to cast their ballots in the presidential election. However, the process of submitting their pick for president is a bit more complicated than most.

Astronauts vote through NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation Program. First, they fill out a Federal Post Card Application to request an absentee ballot because they are away from home.

“After an astronaut fills out an electronic ballot aboard the orbiting laboratory, the document flows through NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRS) to a ground antenna at the agency’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico,” NASA said in a blog post. Then, the encrypted document moves via landline from the TDRS ground terminal to the Mission Control Center in the Johnston Space Center in Houston. Their vote is then delivered electronically to their local county clerk for filing.

Image: NASA
Image: NASA

NASA said that astronauts have voted in U.S. elections since 1997, when Texas passed a law allowing astronauts to vote from space.

There are currently four Americans aboard the ISS who can vote. In 2029, astronaut Kate Rubins voted in the presidential election from space.

“It’s a very important duty that we have as citizens,” Butch Williams, an astronaut currently on the ISS, said in September.

“NASA makes it very easy for us to [be included in elections], so we’re excited about that opportunity,” Wilmore said, according to Space.com.

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