US Presidential Elections 2020: How will NASA astronauts in space cast vote?

NASA astronauts plan to vote from space in the upcoming presidential elections, continuing a long tradition of people casting their ballots from the orbit. Kate Rubins is slated to be the first astronaut to arrive at the International Space Station ahead of the US elections. Rubins will be onboard Soyuz capsule, scheduled be to be launched on October 14, along with Russian astronauts. 

Rubins will later be joined by three more American astronauts who will be onboard SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft which will be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A  at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft will be carrying astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker from NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

“I think it’s really important for everybody to vote,” Rubins told the Associated Press. “If we can do it from space, then I believe folks can do it from the ground, too.”

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Voting from space

Voting from space is a fairly regular occurrence since NASA has maintained a continuous presence on the ISS and astronauts have been casting their ballots for years. During a press conference, Walker said that all of them are planning to vote from space and NASA has the experience to help astronauts vote. She has voted from orbit during her first trip to ISS in 2010.

"They basically send you an electronic file, it's a PDF, and you mark your choices. And then you email it back to…the person who's in charge of the election for the county [you vote in]. And so then that gets counted into all the ballots that are brought back. It's very simple, very straightforward," she told the reporters.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting October 31 for the launch of SpaceX Crew-1 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. The new target date will deconflict the Crew-1 launch and arrival from the upcoming Soyuz launch and landing operations, said NASA.

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(With AP inputs)