Right here’s How US Astronauts Voted From Area – Decrypt

Pissed off by lengthy voting traces? Think about being caught lots of of miles above the Earth and needing to forged your poll.

That’s the truth U.S. astronauts discover themselves in. At the moment, 4 Individuals are orbiting the Earth, together with SpaceX astronaut Nick Hague, NASA astronaut Don Pettit, and stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams.

Regardless of being 250 miles above the closest polling place, the U.S. astronauts aboard the Worldwide Area Station are voting from house by utilizing NASA’s Area Communication and Navigation (SCaN) community, which permits astronauts to transmit their encrypted votes again to Earth securely.

“The Close to Area Community permits astronauts on the Worldwide Area Station to participate within the democratic voting course of and guarantee their voices are heard,” deputy affiliate administrator for SCaN, Kevin Coggins, informed Decrypt in an announcement.

NASA mentioned that Williams, Wilmore, Hague, and Pettit have indicated they plan to vote, however once they do is their choice.

“It’s as much as the crew members to reveal whether or not they have voted,” a NASA spokesperson informed Decrypt, including that “Wilmore said Tuesday morning he had voted early.”

As soon as accomplished aboard the ISS, the digital poll is securely transmitted through NASA’s Monitoring and Information Relay Satellite tv for pc System to a floor antenna on the White Sands Take a look at Facility in New Mexico.

It’s then despatched to Mission Management at Johnson Area Heart and forwarded to the astronauts’ acceptable county clerk for casting. The poll is encrypted, guaranteeing solely the astronaut and the clerk have entry.

Regardless of being stranded on the Worldwide Area Station since June, Wilmore was adamant about voting within the 2024 elections.

“It is a vital position that all of us play as residents, to be included in these elections, and NASA makes it very simple for us to do this,” Wilmore mentioned throughout a press convention in September.

Voting from house shouldn’t be new and dates again to the late Nineteen Nineties. Texas grew to become the primary U.S. state to legalize voting from orbit in 1997, and astronaut David Wolf grew to become the primary American to vote from house that 12 months, adopted by Kate Rubins in 2020.

Past enabling astronauts to take part in elections, SCaN manages varied important communication networks for NASA, together with the Deep Area Community, Close to Earth Community, and Area Community.

In response to NASA, the Area Communication and Navigation community connects missions inside 1.2 million miles of Earth, far sufficient to succeed in Mars, round 92 million miles away. These networks not solely help astronauts but additionally play a vital position in advancing NASA’s broader missions.

“NASA’s Area Communication and Navigation house communication networks are key to bringing down science and exploration information, and our program additionally performs an important position in connecting astronauts to their households, the company’s Mission Management Heart, and extra,” Coggins mentioned.

NASA can be trying to lengthen its communication capabilities even additional into deep house, having launched the Deep Area Optical Communication (DSOC) challenge, which makes use of lasers to ship information so far as 2.2 billion miles away.

Whereas NASA continues to develop superior communication strategies for deep house, the identical know-how that helps astronauts join with Earth permits them to carry out probably the most vital civic duties—voting, irrespective of the place they’re within the universe.

Edited by Josh Quittner and Sebastian Sinclair