Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) Three NASA astronauts, including Anil Menon, on Tuesday cast their ballots in the US midterm elections from the International Space Station orbiting over 400 kms above Earth.
Menon and two other astronauts – Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins – filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to election officials.
“Yes, you can even vote from space,” Menon said in a post on X.
Menon reached the International Space Station on July 14 on board a Russian Soyuz mission. Delaney and Watkins reached the orbital laboratory on October 1 onboard a SpaceX rocket.
“All three US crew members had the privilege of voting from Space Station. We filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to the election officials,” Menon said.
The US is voting in the midterm elections on Tuesday to elect 435 members of the House of Representatives, 37 members of the Senate, 36 state governors and a host of local elected officials.
Like most data transmitted between the space station and mission control, the ballot traverses through NASA’s Near Space Network, managed by the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The ballot is encrypted and only accessible by the astronaut and the clerk to preserve the vote’s integrity.
In a short video, Menon said he exercised his franchise inside his room on the ISS, which doubled up as a polling booth.
Menon said he filled out an electronic form and sent it to Harris County in Texas. PTI SKU ZH
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