NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Sunita Williams and others voted early for the US presidential election from the International Space Station (ISS).
Sunita and Butch have been stuck on the ISS since June. They will return to Earth in early 2025.
The NASA astronauts posted a photo of themselves on social media wearing patriotic-colored socks on Election Day.
The socks of two of the astronauts read “Proud to be American.”
The astronauts who voted are part of the more than 1.2 million people who casted their votes early in US election.
How did astronauts vote in US election?
Ballots cast in space get beamed to Earth the same way most data is transmitted between the space station and mission control .
After an astronaut fills out an electronic ballot aboard the orbiting laboratory. The document flows through NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground antenna at the agency’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
From New Mexico, NASA transfers the ballot to the Mission Control Center and then to the county clerk responsible for casting it.
To preserve the vote’s integrity, the ballot is encrypted and accessible only by the astronaut and the clerk.
