US Prez polls: NASA astronaut votes from space

MUMBAI: Among the millions of votes cast in this year’s US Presidential election, one was that of astronaut Kate Rubins, who exercised her franchise from the International Space Station 250 miles above the earth using NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) infrastructure, the agency confirmed on Wednesday.
In 1997, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that allowed NASA astronauts to vote from space.That year, David Wolf became the first American to vote from space on the Mir Space Station.
Rubins’ ballot — like most data transmitted between the space station and mission control — traversed through NASA’s Space Network, managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
After Rubins filled out her specially-designed, electronic absentee ballot aboard the orbiting laboratory, the document flowed through a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to a ground antenna at the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
From New Mexico, NASA transfers the ballot to the mission control center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and then on to the county clerk responsible for casting the ballot. The ballot is encrypted and only accessible by the astronaut and the clerk to preserve the vote’s integrity.
On Tuesday, Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams — while speaking at the 20th anniversary of the first human presence at the space station — said the secure communication network ensured that the ballot wasn’t tampered with.