After NASA’s decision to keep them in space until 2025, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will now cast their votes more than 200 miles above their usual polling place.

The decision to send Boeing's Starliner capsule home uncrewed from the ISS was driven in part by time constraints, according to NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams watched the spacecraft that took them to the International Space Station leave them behind last week as the Boeing Starliner made its return trip to Earth without a crew.

I sent down my request for a ballot today, as a matter of fact, and they should get it to us in a couple of weeks,” Butch Wilmore said.

They’re temporary extraterrestrials about to phone home. The NASA astronauts already trapped in space for months are due to call Earth on Friday afternoon to discuss their ongoing plight

Texas first passed a law in 1997 that allows astronauts to vote if they will be in space during early voting and on Election Day.

American astronauts from NASA will be on the International Space Station (ISS) on 5 November, Election Day, and will cast their votes via postal ballots, CNN reported. They will float 320 kilometres above the nearest polling station that day.