Three NASA Astronauts To Vote From The International Space Station On Nov. 3

Three NASA astronauts are voting from the International Space Station (ISS) on Nov. 3. The astronauts are launching next month on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience capsule for a six-month mission in space.

The crew announced on Tuesday that NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi will leave on Oct. 31 for the non-test mission, following a successful two-man preliminary mission last summer.

Walker said the crew will fill out an electronic PDF file aboard the ISS some 250 miles above Earth and email their votes to election officials on election day. “All of us are planning on voting from space,” he confirmed.

“NASA works very well with different election organizations because we’re all voting from different countries. But it was easiest for us just to say we are going to vote from space. So that’s what we’re going to do,” he added.

The upcoming mission comes as NASA regains its capacity to send astronauts to space after almost five years of dependence on Russia’s Soyuz vehicles. SpaceX’s last crewed mission, “Endeavor,” ended in August with a successful splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

NASA also confirmed on Tuesday that the name of the capsule to be used in the upcoming mission is “Resilience.” He said the name serves as a tribute to a challenging 2020. “I think all of us can agree that 2020 has certainly been a challenging year,” said Hopkins.

Crew Dragon chief Benji Reed said Resilience will feature a few adjustments to the heat shield and altitude sensors of the Crew Dragon capsule, following a careful analysis of the data derived from the summer mission.

Hopkins added that both the SpaceX and NASA had agreed to push ahead with the launch plans this year despite the series of recent unfortunate events, including the global economic meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic, and civil unrest across the world.

Earlier this month, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins also confirmed she would vote from orbit in the coming elections. She will launch to the ISS on Oct. 14 aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule alongside cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.