DS-1 Orbital Battle Station

The Death Star was a sphere with a diameter of 160 km (100 miles), featuring 357 internal levels and a surface area exceeding 45,000 square kilometers. A prominent concave dish in the northern hemisphere served as the superlaser emitter. The station's command bridge, known as the Overbridge, was positioned above the superlaser's dish within the Northern Polar Command Sector. The war room included designated stations for Tarkin and other officers, a HoloNet booth for communicating with the Emperor, and extensive viewscreens. Adjacent to the bridge was the Death Star conference room on the officer's deck, equipped with a circular table and twelve seats for high-ranking Imperial officers. The Emperor's tower, including its throne room, was also located within the Command Sector.

The station's equator was equipped with numerous docking ports of varying sizes, supported by powerful tractor-beam projectors and focusing shafts. The equator also housed docking and hangar bays, tractor-beam generators, projectors, and emitter towers, turbolaser emplacements, and mooring platforms for ships, including Imperial-class Star Destroyers. "Tulip" style Imperial work stations were situated in various rooms throughout the station.

A habitable crust, several kilometers in thickness, contained command centers, armories, maintenance blocks, and other essential facilities for the station's operation. Backup weapons operators were stationed in unused stories in the lower levels for emergencies. The southern hemisphere extended downward through armories, deep storage, and a southern command sector, supported by massive girders. Cranes and other abandoned construction materials remained within the station at the time of its destruction in 0 BBY. Aside from the crust, the station's interior was largely uninhabited, housing the hypermatter reactor, hyperdrive, 123 Kuat Drive Yards sublight engines, and the superweapon. The outer hull was constructed from quadanium steel plates.

Modular artificial atmosphere stations and water-recycling tanks were distributed throughout the station to create air and humidity. Large airways served as circulation routes and emergency air dumps in case of atmosphere contamination, with a central airway for each sector. Magnetic seals and an atmosphere-containment projector maintained the internal atmosphere and prevented the vacuum of space from entering when docking-bay doors were opened.

The most significant weapon on the Death Star was its superlaser, a device powered by a hypermatter annihilation reactor and focused through giant kyber crystals, possessing the power to destroy an entire planet. The hypermatter reactor at the station's core supplied energy to the superlaser's components, including the primary power amplifier, superlaser power cell, firing field amplifier, and induction hyperphase generators. During firing, energy was channeled into eight tributary beam shafts around the superlaser's perimeter, producing lasers that converged using focusing coils to form a planet-destroying beam. Misalignment of the firing-chamber arrays would cause the crystals to burn out and overload, sending dangerous waste heat back into the main reactor.

In addition to the superlaser, the Death Star was equipped with 15,000 turbolaser batteries and 768 tractor beam emplacements. These defenses were designed to repel large-scale fleet attacks, rather than individual starfighters, which the Empire considered insignificant threats. Shield projectors and communications arrays were distributed across the armored surface, similar to colonies. Security stations were positioned around the circumference, equipped with holographic maps of the local space region.

For space-based offense and defense, the battle station housed numerous TIE fighters, which regularly patrolled the surrounding space. Due to the Death Star's immense size, it exerted a strong gravitational pull, requiring TIE fighter pilots to adjust their ships' thrusters in a manner more akin to planetary atmosphere takeoffs than those from a space station. TIE staging areas maintained twenty TIE craft ready for immediate launch.

The battle station accommodated 342,953 members of the Imperial Army and Navy, 25,984 stormtroopers, and nearly 2 million personnel of varying combat readiness. While communal barracks were available, there were also enough private bunks for most personnel to receive one within three to six months of arrival. Enlisted personnel used walkways or turbolifts for vertical and horizontal movement, while officers had access to a high-speed, officer-only shuttle system orbiting the station. Large housing blocks for enlisted personnel included atriums for off-duty relaxation. Officers could expect exclusive accommodations. Life-support modules used during the Death Star's original construction could still be used in emergencies. The station featured several hospital wings and color-coded life-support modules in the lower levels: gray for workers, red for overseers.

Designed to be self-sufficient, the Death Star offered amenities uncommon in other Imperial Military postings, including decent [food](/article/foodstuff], recreation areas, cantinas with advanced bartender [droids](/article/droid], and commissaries with expensive treats and luxuries. The Death Star had its own commissary and bar. Off-duty stormtroopers were known to secretly play violent ball games in the station's zero-gravity filtration system.

The station's detention block, while large, was intended for temporary detention and interrogation before transfer to planetary prisons or execution, rather than long-term imprisonment. Prisoners were held in complete darkness on the Detention Level before being moved to brightly lit interrogation rooms.

The Death Star's power originated from a massive hypermatter reactor, enclosed in radiation insulator plating, at the station's center. Its destruction would have been catastrophic. Doonium and dolovite were crucial for shielding the hypermatter reactor core, focusing dish, and superlaser. The reactor connected to various components, including the superlaser, power diversion solenoid, and enormous power cells. The Death Star's tractor beam generator was also linked to the main reactor through seven power generator terminals throughout the station. The superlaser's power could be adjusted by controlling the number of reactor ignitions used to fuel it. A single ignition could destroy a large area of a planet's surface, rather than the entire world.

Despite the Death Star's immense power, Darth Sidious, the Emperor of the Galactic Empire, viewed the battle station as a constant reminder and symbol of the dark side of the Force's power. Once freed from the need to project this image, he and his Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, would have focused on "more pressing matters" that only they could address, unrelated to the Empire. Ultimately, Sidious sought the power to reshape the universe according to his will, a desire beyond mere immortality.

The concept of a massive planet-killing battle station had roots stretching back millennia, including to the ancient Sith Empire, where tyrants entertained the idea of such a superweapon. The DS-1 project originated on Geonosis, with plans for what the Geonosians termed the Ultimate Weapon project given to Count Dooku, the public leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and secretly the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus, by Archduke Poggle the Lesser for safekeeping during the First Battle of Geonosis, in the waning decades of the Galactic Republic. Shortly after the battle, Dooku presented the plans to his Sith Master, Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, who was publicly Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Sheev Palpatine. During the war, Jedi General Aayla Secura and her astromech droid, QT-KT, nearly discovered the Death Star plans when they inflitrated the Secret Research Facility on an unmapped moon. However, the assassin Asajj Ventress engaged Secura in a lightsaber duel and prevented her discovery.

The massive project was financed by a consortium of factions, including the Trade Federation, Muunilinst Banking Clan, the Techno Union, and covertly, the Republic itself. During later Republic interrogation, Geonosian leader Poggle the Lesser claimed that Dooku had merely presented the schematics to them, and the Geonosians had only refined them. He also admitted that the Stalgasin hive had not had time to design the station's main weapon before the Battle of Geonosis disrupted development. The design, based on a superlaser array using massive kyber crystals, drew inspiration from ancient Sith technology.

By 21 BBY, the Republic Special Weapons Group developed plans for both an automated battlemoon asteroid and a [torpedo siege platform](/article/torpedo_siege_platform], neither of which progressed beyond the design stage. However, soon after the Second Battle of Geonosis, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine presented the Death Star plans to the Republic Strategic Advisory Cell during the cell's second briefing. Unaware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord who had received the plans from Dooku, the members privy to the top-secret intelligence concluded that the plans must have fallen into Republic hands during or shortly after the battle. Using the plans, Palpatine fabricated a story that the Separatists were building their own superweapon, alarming Republic officials and enabling him to direct full funding towards the station's secret construction.

The Strategic Advisory Cell planned the Death Star's construction, meeting regularly at the summit of the Strategic Planning Amphitheater within the Republic Center for Military Operations on Coruscant. These meetings involved a diverse group of 150 individuals from prestigious and influential positions, including select senators; representatives from Corellian Engineering, Kuat Drive Yards, and Rendili StarDrive; key advisers; the chief of naval intelligence; the director of COMPOR; high-ranking military members; members of the War Production Board; structural engineers; starship designers; theoretical and experimental physicists; Dr. Gubacher; Prof. Sahali; Lieutenant Commander Orson Krennic; Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda; and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The Jedi were not invited and were unaware of the project under construction over Geonosis.

All individuals involved in the battle station's construction were required to sign the Official Secrets Oath. The project received near-unlimited funding due to Republic fears that the Separatists were building their own battle station, which intelligence suggested was why Count Dooku had not attacked the station over Geonosis. Geonosian Leader Poggle the Lesser maintained that the Separatists had no such project. Despite this, most cell members refused to believe him and searched the galaxy for the supposed construction site. Rejecting this possibility would have jeopardized Republic funding for the project, regardless of the authority ceded to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine by the Emergency Powers Act. Thus, the Republic's effort to construct the battle station was prioritized to outpace the Separatists' presumed efforts.

Funding for the project would have been considered questionable before the Clone Wars. However, as the war continued, more research firms were drawn into government contracts, each focusing on a different aspect of the space station, such as shielding or power supply, without knowing the ultimate purpose of their research. Researchers involved in defense projects were required to sign the Official Secrets Oath. Initial construction on the Death Star was carried out by newly designed machines, some controlled by sentient operators in orbital command habitats. A vast fleet of ships supplied the station with metals, organic materials, and water. Viable asteroids were towed and tractor-beamed to the station from around the planet and from the surrounding fields of the Geonosis system. Once mined, ores were sent to foundries in synchronous orbit for the production of durasteel and other metals.

Droid factories, cannibalized from those built by Baktoid Armor on Geonosis's surface, allowed additional foundries to become operational shortly after the start of asteroid mining. In 21 BBY, after the Second Battle of Geonosis and before the first anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis, the Strategic Advisory Cell announced the completion of phase one of the Death Star's construction. The supports for the station's superstructure, spanning one hundred and sixty kilometers from pole to pole, had been completed. The next phase involved fabricating a temporary equator and a series of longitudinal bands to roughly form the sphere. As the bands were secured, construction of the hull began, along with partitioning the interior into individual sections. The cabin spaces were to be clad, sealed, and pressurized to allow for the use of sentient laborers alongside droids.

Initial sentient labor estimates were in the millions. A Strategic Advisory Cell subcommittee considered providing the Kaminoans with a template to grow a clone labor force adapted for deep-space work. Orson Krennic independently negotiated a deal with Poggle the Lesser: in exchange for cooperation with the Republic, his Geonosian workers would begin construction on the facility. Instead of being punished, Krennic was given greater oversight of the project by Mas Amedda. After several months, workers completed the station's false equator, which Krennic described as resembling "an antique gyroscope" rather than a sphere. Following this, several degrees of the upper hemisphere were fitted with latitudinal structural members, and rudimentary layout work began on cladding a portion of the curved hull. Construction droids focused on creating the first interior spaces to serve as placeholders until actual cabin spaces could be bulkheaded. The Geonosians were the first organics planned to inhabit the life-support modules.

Following Poggle's announcement of the project to the Geonosians, tens of thousands of drones were transferred to Orbital Foundry 7, the second-largest structure visible from the command habitat. The drones oversaw the construction of enormous pie-slice-shaped concavities that, when assembled, would form the battle station's focusing dish and power well. By this time, three slices had been completed, and another six were in various stages of completion. The drone laborers were supervised by winged soldiers, loyal to castes overseen by Poggle, who had a lavish suite connected to the foundry by a series of tubular connectors.

The blueprint for constructing the space station's massive dish involved assembling it while in orbit. It would then be guided by a combination of tractor beams and tugs into an enormous indentation pre-fabricated into the upper section of the sphere – affectionately termed "the dimple" by some. The design of the parabolic reflector incorporated a telescoping feature, enabling it to extend away from the main structure. This was intended to facilitate the aiming of the early composite-beam proton superlaser, a concept put forth by certain scientists within the Special Weapons Group. Due to the incomplete status of the weapon's design when construction commenced, most individuals associated with the project operated under the assumption that its functionality would be dictated by the existing structure. Orson Krennic was given the responsibility of overseeing the dish's construction, assembly, and eventual installation.

As a direct consequence of his willingness to collaborate, Poggle was granted the privilege of using a spacecraft for transit between Geonosis and the space station. Poggle's approach to production centered on compelling the drone workforce to engage in tasks considered demeaning to their skill sets or social standing, with the intention of boosting overall productivity. Predictably, this resulted in widespread discontent among the drones. Several weeks later, the final segments of the dish were produced, yet the dish itself remained partially assembled, and the upper hemisphere still required finishing touches. The construction of living quarters in the polar region by droids lagged behind schedule. Concurrently, a significant number of Geonosians began to perish due to a lack of work—a peculiar physiological characteristic unique to their species. Poggle maintained that this fostered competition and provided ample incentive for the remaining workers to exert greater effort. Marines were deployed to eliminate any workers who refused to comply with orders.

By 19 BBY, the Geonosian laborers initiated a large-scale uprising, effectively undoing three months' worth of labor. During this period, the battle station's parabolic focusing array was nearing completion, the hull was being fitted with cladding, and the internal compartments were being partitioned and rendered habitable. Efforts were made to improve living conditions for the drones and minimize overcrowding. In actuality, the riot served as a smokescreen, enabling Archduke Poggle the Lesser to flee back to the Separatists aboard his personal vessel, which had been secretly equipped with a hyperdrive by his drone workforce.

Kyber crystals, essential for the station's power systems, were gathered from various locations across the galaxy. The Separatist Alliance undertook these acquisitions until the Clone Wars' end. One such endeavor met with failure on the Outer Rim world of Utapau, following intervention by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.

The Clone Wars, a conflict spanning three years, concluded in 19 BBY, drawing to a close. With the war's conclusion, Darth Sidious eliminated his Confederate pawns, including his own apprentice, and announced the establishment of the new, autocratic Galactic Empire, declaring himself Emperor.

The nascent Empire immediately seized control of the Ultimate Weapon project. Access to Geonosis was restricted to a select group of Imperial scientists and engineers, with only a handful of individuals within the Imperial hierarchy even aware of its existence. A highly guarded supply network, incorporating multiple deceptive routes and outposts, was established to ensure continued secrecy. It was during this time that the battle station received its official designation, Death Star, and the hull designation DS-1, although the original codename, Stardust, remained in use within design documents. Tiaan Jerjerrod, a designer of architecture and starships hailing from Tinnel IV, was recruited to contribute to the construction of the megaweapon. As construction progressed under Imperial authority, Palpatine delegated responsibility for the project to the Imperial Navy, placing Wilhuff Tarkin and Orson Krennic in charge of the battle station's development.

Despite the ongoing construction efforts, not all Imperials were convinced of the project's feasibility. Some voiced concerns regarding what would later be dubbed "Tarkin's folly," while others remained completely unaware of its existence. General Jylia Shale was among those who protested its development, only to find her input increasingly disregarded over time. Grand Admiral Balanhai Savit suggested that the Death Star might remain effective for a period of five, ten or even fifty years. However, he believed that, eventually, a method would be discovered to neutralize or destroy it. Similarly, General Cassio Tagge expressed the view that relying solely on the Death Star as the Empire's primary weapon was a strategic error.

The Tarkin Initiative, an Imperial think tank, contributed to the conceptualization of both the first and second Death Stars. While numerous starship designers and engineers attempted to claim credit for the station's construction, only the Emperor possessed a complete understanding of the project's history. Rumors circulated within Imperial circles suggesting that it was a Confederate weapon developed by Geonosian Archduke Poggle the Lesser's hive colony for Count Dooku, although no one could substantiate these claims. Some noted, however, that the plans must have fallen into Republic hands prior to the Clone Wars' conclusion, given the station's partially completed shell and laser-focusing dish at that time.

Shortly following the declaration of the New Order, Emperor Palpatine and Lord Vader, accompanied by Governor Tarkin, visited the station aboard a newly commissioned Imperial-class Star Destroyer. By this point, the focusing dish had been successfully installed. Orson Krennic suspected that his exclusion from the elite passenger list was a consequence of Poggle's recent escape while under his supervision. Both Wilhuff Tarkin and Orson Krennic aspired to gain complete control over the Death Star project. To further his ambitions, Krennic had been manipulating his longtime acquaintance Galen Erso since the Clone Wars. By recruiting him into Project Celestial Power, an Imperial research division unknowingly dedicated to weaponizing Galen's kyber crystal research, Krennic hoped to secure oversight of the Death Star and be promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral. During this period, Krennic began seizing legacy worlds—planets legally protected from exploitation—by employing independent contractor Has Obitt to deposit weapons and war materiel on planets such as Samovar and Wadi Raffa, to exploit their reserves of doonium and dolovite. After "discovering" the weapons on these planets, Krennic appropriated them to prevent "Separatist holdouts" from acquiring them.

Wilhuff Tarkin viewed Krennic's unauthorized appropriation of planets as evidence of his excessive ambition, impulsiveness, and disregard for authority and the chain of command. Tarkin, like Krennic, believed that he should ultimately be placed in charge of the Death Star project. Consequently, Tarkin planned to exploit Krennic as a convenient scapegoat for any construction delays or problems that were likely to plague the project, fully aware that the Emperor was considering both of them for a promotion. To avoid prematurely accepting the privilege, Tarkin continued to defer to Krennic until the opportune moment arose to remove him. Krennic also devised a plan to keep Tarkin occupied. In 18 BBY, Krennic orchestrated an insurgency within the Salient system, knowing that Tarkin, unable to retreat, would become embroiled in a weeks-long battle, thereby diminishing his standing with the Emperor.

Early attempts to test-fire the Death Star's superlaser resulted in the destruction of an entire city on Malpaz. The first successful test firing occurred much later at a remote black-hole binary system known as the Hero Twins. Preliminary scans indicated that the energy released during the test-fire possessed the destructive capacity of the combined batteries of a qaz-class Star Destroyer. The superlaser was powered by a kyber crystal-assisted twin laser array, meticulously assembled and calibrated on Hypori, and installed on an Imperial-class Star Destroyer commandeered by the Special Weapons Group. Grand Vizier Mas Amedda preferred the test firing to take place closer to the Core, but Krennic cautioned against it, recognizing that a misfire would likely result in the ship's destruction. As a result of the successful test firing, Krennic was promoted to the rank of full commander.

For over a year, Galen Erso was engaged in Project Celestial Power, granted access to nearly unlimited quantities of kyber crystals looted from Jedi Temples and lightsabers. Imperial research teams under Celestial Power were assigned codenames such as Pax Aurora, Mark Omega, and Stellar Sphere. Virtually all research divisions relied on research conducted by Galen Erso, who possessed an extensive knowledge of crystallography. Galen believed that his research was intended to rehabilitate worlds devastated by the Clone Wars by providing affordable power to civilian populations. Eventually, Galen, growing suspicious due to the lack of information provided by Krennic regarding the application of his research, discovered that his work was being weaponized without his consent. Enraged, Galen, along with his wife and daughter, Jyn Erso, fled the Celestial Power facility on Coruscant with the assistance of the notorious rebel Saw Gerrera. The Erso family relocated to Lah'mu, hoping that Krennic—who was demoted to lieutenant commander for Erso's escape and infuriated that his former friend chose pacifism over the fame the battle station would give him—would not locate them. Tarkin was subsequently granted oversight of Sentinel Base and the Death Star project.

Construction of the first Death Star continued for several years in utmost secrecy above Geonosis, under the direction of Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin. The Empire employed construction modules operated by Wookiee slave laborers and various other species to complete the project. Numerous manufacturing facilities, including those on Riosa, were seized by the Empire, with their workers pushed to their limits to produce components for the battle station. Most of the construction work on the station was conducted in microgravity, while omnidirectional boosters provided standard gravity to a large cabin space near the station's surface that would eventually become the Overbridge. Serving as the central hub for a multitude of construction droids, the station was guarded by four Star Destroyers and twice as many frigates, maintaining a fixed orbit above the planet. Five years after the Empire took over the station, the northern hemisphere focus lens frame for the superlaser remained little more than a metallic crater, and while some of the hyperdrive components had been installed, the station was far from being capable of hyperspace travel.

Partly to safeguard the station, and to provide multiple drop-off points to further obscure any attempts to trace the ultimate destination of materials, outposts such as Desolation Station and Rampart Station were constructed during the Clone Wars, with Rampart serving as a marshaling depot for supplies destined for Geonosis. These stations were overseen by Sentinel Base, a large garrison base initially deployed from a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Supervision of this clandestine project was entrusted to Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit. However, Wilhuff Tarkin replaced Rancit at some point following the Antar Atrocity, with Palpatine attempting to shield Tarkin from the political fallout resulting from the operation. Consequently, Tarkin's three years in command of Sentinel Base and the hundreds of supply and sentry outposts established for the station were plagued by bureaucratic inefficiency and complexity.

Shipments from research sites were frequently delayed, asteroid mining above Geonosis proved impractical, missed construction deadlines by the engineers and scientists overseeing the project fueled frustration, and raids against convoys heading for the station created an administrative nightmare. Furthermore, the Empire's policy of preventing any single base commander—Moff, admiral, or general—from having unrestricted access to all information regarding shipments, scheduling, or construction progress meant that no single individual was fully in charge of the project, with the exception of the Emperor—whose visits were infrequent. Relying on countless suppliers and tens of millions of beings throughout the galaxy, the project's immense scale and need for secrecy hindered any genuine efforts toward its completion, with the Imperial Security Bureau and Naval Intelligence Agency continuously suppressing rumors and quashing information leaks. Moreover, disillusioned individuals from the former Republic abandoned the project with such regularity that COMPNOR compiled a most-wanted list of missing scientists and technicians with high-priority security clearances.

Following a sophisticated attack against Sentinel Base by an organized cell of former Republic Intelligence operatives under the command of Berch Teller, Tarkin, with the assistance of Lord Vader, was tasked with the subsequent manhunt for those involved in the operation. The ensuing investigation involved the highest echelons of Imperial power, who were concerned about the attack's proximity to Geonosis, and the attacker's ability to insert a false real-time feed into the local HoloNet relay, attempting to divert Sentinel's defenses to Rampart Station, which was falsely reported to be under attack by remnant Confederacy Providence-, Recusant-, and Munificent-class warships. After a meeting in the Imperial Palace with several members of the Joint Chiefs and the Emperor himself, an engagement on Murkhana, initially intended to investigate the former Separatist Shadowfeed operation, resulted in Tarkin's personal starship, the Carrion Spike, being hijacked by the dissidents.

Using the stolen vessel to inflict devastation across several Mid and Outer Rim worlds—which the dissidents broadcast through the local HoloNet before the Empire shut it down—the conspirators were ultimately stopped after an attempt to destroy a supply shipment destined for the new Death Star project, with the Star Destroyers Executrix, Compliant, and Enforcer arriving on the scene. The rebels and their secret benefactor, Vice Admiral Rancit, were subsequently tortured and executed in secret by the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) upon the discovery of Rancit's involvement in the scheme. In reality, Rancit had intended to ultimately betray the insurgents above Carida, making it appear as if he had stopped their rampage, thereby securing support from the Emperor and potentially receiving a promotion.

To conceal the military embarrassment caused by Rancit's betrayal, the HoloNet portrayed the attacks as an elaborate attempt to draw out and destroy rebel cells. Thus, while many in the galaxy were aware of an Imperial construction project underway over Geonosis, few knew its true nature. As a result of Tarkin's efforts, the Emperor elevated him to the newly created title of Grand Moff, granting him greater control over the Outer Systems, as well as oversight of the entire battle station project. Roughly two weeks later, several of the station's sublight engines had been completed and were tested with Tarkin on board to oversee the operation as the station surpassed the speed of Geonosis's rotation. Despite his newfound authority over the program, Tarkin maintained a degree of detachment from the project, as he did not wish to assume full responsibility for the Death Star until it was completed. Consequently, Tarkin was free to attribute setbacks and failures to Krennic, who began to be identified as the Director of Advanced Weapons Research at some point.

For years during the station's construction, numerous skirmishes with Imperial shipping delayed construction. When a band of Lothal rebels attacked and destroyed an Imperial supply convoy carrying kyber crystals five years before the Battle of Yavin, construction on the station was hampered. At some point after these attacks, the station was moved from Geonosis to another base, and in order to keep the project a secret, the entire Geonosian species was wiped out. Three years before the Battle of Yavin, one of the modules used during construction was used by ISB Agent Kallus to ambush the same group of rebels previously responsible for ambushing the supply convoy of kyber crystals, who this time were on a mission to find out what the Empire was building above the planet. The Empire's attempt to capture the rebels ultimately failed.

During the station's construction, Saw Gerrera came close enough to discovering the Death Star that the Empire was prompted to move it from Geonosis to Scarif for the final stages of the project around 9 BBY, where Director Orson Krennic oversaw the protection of the station with the aid of his personal detachment of death troopers.

Assistant Director Brierly Ronan, a member of Project Stardust, posited that the Death Star's completion would render the existing political framework on the Imperial capital of Coruscant largely irrelevant. Ronan believed that Emperor Palpatine and Director Krennic would become the sole figures of significance. However, Lieutenant Eli Vanto, a former commander in the Imperial Navy and current member of the Chiss Ascendancy, suggested that Palpatine alone could emerge as the dominant figure, a notion that Ronan dismissed.

The massive construction project, which had taken considerably longer than anticipated, was finally completed nearly twenty years after its inception during the Clone Wars, and was subsequently renamed the Death Star. Imperial Navy pilots and military personnel were assigned to the station shortly before its public unveiling, and were new enough to still be labeled as classified. After extracting the last of the kyber crystals from the ancient Temple of the Kyber in Jedha City, Krennic informed Tarkin that the station was operational and ready to destroy a planet. However, Tarkin, still unconvinced of the station's power, ordered that only Jedha City be destroyed. Using a minimal amount of the superlaser's power, the order was executed, resulting in the destruction of Jedha City and miles of surrounding terrain, including the hideout of Saw Gerrera's extremist group. However, Jyn Erso intercepted a message from her father, the scientist Galen Erso, revealing that the Death Star possessed a fatal flaw that he had deliberately installed.

Erso and her companions conveyed the information regarding the Death Star's vulnerability to the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Unable to reach a consensus on how to respond to the new threat, the squad, Rogue One, infiltrated Scarif to steal the plans, which were transmitted before the Death Star was used to destroy the Imperial base. With the mission's success, the technical schematics of the battle station were received by Imperial senator and rebel sympathizer Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, who intended to share them with her allies. However, before she could do so, the blockade runner she was aboard was intercepted by Imperial forces under the command of Darth Vader, and she was captured, but not before she entrusted the plans to the astromech droid R2-D2 and dispatched him with the protocol droid C-3PO in an escape pod to the planet below. Meanwhile, Tarkin orchestrated a simulated weapons test of the Death Star against the primitive planet Rango Tan to assess the gunner crew's willingness to fire.

As a high-value prisoner, Organa was confined to Cell 2187 of Detention Block AA-23, sub-level five, where she was subjected to interrogation in an attempt to ascertain the location of the Rebellion's secret base. Encountering significant resistance to Imperial interrogation methods, Tarkin elected to employ a different tactic: intimidation. In an effort to compel Organa to reveal the Rebel base's location, Tarkin threatened to utilize the station's primary weapon to destroy her homeworld. Although she ostensibly relented and provided the Rebel base's location as Dantooine, Tarkin ordered the attack to proceed to demonstrate the military might that the Empire now possessed. Alderaan was deemed the ideal target to illustrate that no planet was immune to destruction at the hands of the Death Star. Tarkin had also observed that Chief Gunner Endo Frant had been reluctant to fire on his homeworld and intended to eliminate that weakness. In a matter of moments, the Death Star obliterated the planet Alderaan, leaving no survivors. Nearly all personnel on the Death Star were ordered to witness the destruction, including Iden Versio, a Senior Lieutenant in the Imperial Navy.

Immediately following the planet's destruction, the Star Destroyer Devastator departed the station, and a small Imperial force was dispatched to investigate Leia's claim under the command of General Cassio Tagge. Upon arriving in the system, however, they discovered that the base had been abandoned. When they refused to apologize for hesitating, Tarkin also had Frant and every other gunner who hesitated at firing on Alderaan killed. Upon learning that the Rebel base on Dantooine was abandoned, Tarkin, angered by her deception, ordered Organa's execution, although Vader persuaded him to allow her to be rescued by a group of outlaws, in order to track them back to the Rebel base themselves. Imperial Professor Thlu-Ry was also present on the space station, assisting with its final alignment tests before departing.

The pursuit of Organa and her Rebel compatriots by the Death Star culminated in the Yavin system, where the hidden Rebel base was situated on the moon of Yavin 4. Thanks to R2-D2's delivery of the Death Star's technical schematics, the Rebels were able to pinpoint a critical vulnerability in the battle station's architecture. Consequently, they readied their starfighters for a perilous endeavor to obliterate the station before it could unleash its destructive power upon Yavin 4. Alliance tactician Jan Dodonna outlined the strategy, which involved launching proton torpedoes into a narrow, two-meter thermal exhaust port located within the station's meridian trench. This conduit led directly to the station's primary reactor, where a deliberate flaw introduced by Galen Erso was designed to trigger a catastrophic chain reaction, leading to the station's demise. The exhaust port was surprisingly unguarded, a consequence of the Death Star's design philosophy that prioritized defense against large-scale assaults.

Initially, the battle seemed to favor the Alliance, as the Rebel ships' diminutive size allowed them to evade turbolaser fire. However, the tide turned with the deployment of numerous TIE fighters, personally led by Darth Vader in his customized TIE Advanced x1. These fighters decimated the majority of the Rebel fleet, yet one pilot ultimately achieved success. Luke Skywalker, a native of Tatooine, skillfully piloted his T-65B X-wing starfighter to fire a pair of proton torpedoes precisely into the thermal exhaust port. As predicted, the torpedoes initiated a chain reaction that obliterated the Death Star's main reactor, resulting in the destruction of the Empire's formidable weapon.

The once-constant stream of thousands of communications emanating from the Death Star ceased instantaneously. In the ensuing hours of disarray following the station's annihilation, numerous rumors regarding its defeat spread throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, a Gozanti-class cruiser, crewed by Ciena Ree and Berisse Sai, was dispatched to the Yavin system to both verify the Empire's worst fears and retrieve Lord Vader, who was stranded within his TIE Advanced x1.

Following a brief celebration, the Rebels promptly initiated the evacuation of their base to preempt the inevitable Imperial retaliation for the station's destruction.

The Empire, having lost Grand Moff Tarkin, numerous members of the Joint Chiefs, and a significant number of military personnel, began mobilizing for a full-scale galactic conflict. Simultaneously, they pressed forward with the construction of the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station. The Imperial HoloNet subsequently minimized the significance of the Empire's weapon being destroyed, instead characterizing it as an "unprecedented attack by the Rebel Alliance" while emphasizing the Empire's capacity to destroy entire planets as a means of instilling fear in potential dissenters. Furthermore, Lord Vader distributed fragments of Alderaan as state gifts to rebellious worlds in need of discipline.

Despite efforts to diminish the Rebel victory, Imperial statisticians observed a predictable surge in pirate and dissident activities following the loss of such a prestigious weapon. Seeking retribution against those responsible for the station's destruction, the Emperor initiated a purge within the Empire's highest echelons, executing officials such as Moff Coovern and Minister Khemt, whom he deemed partly responsible for the station's demise due to their incompetence. Consequently, General Cassio Tagge was promoted to the newly established rank of Grand General and granted the majority of the powers previously held by Tarkin, primarily due to his ability to question the battle station's invulnerability. Tagge believed that the Death Star project had been fundamentally flawed from its inception. As a staunch advocate for the Imperial Navy, Tagge argued that future strategies should leverage existing assets as force multipliers, rather than relying on a single, all-encompassing solution like the Death Star. The Emperor entrusted Tagge's revised strategy until the completion of the second Death Star.

In 5 ABY, the New Republic collected debris from the destroyed Death Star and presented it to the Alderaan Flotilla as a gift from Princess Leia Organa, intended for the construction of a space station above the ruins of Alderaan. While the initial plan was to scrap the debris, Leia utilized her political influence to ensure it was put to constructive use.

The design flaw that led to the Death Star's destruction never became common knowledge. Although some correctly speculated that the Emperor had been betrayed by an insider, the widely accepted narrative remained that of Luke Skywalker's single, decisive shot in a starfighter.

More than three decades later, the First Order, the Empire's successor, constructed a similar planet-destroying weapon called Starkiller Base, considered an improved version of the Empire's Death Star design. Unlike the Death Stars of the past, this superweapon, integrated into the kyber-rich planet of Ilum, could fire its planet-shattering beam through sub-hyperspace, obliterating multiple targets light-years away. Like its predecessors, it was destroyed by a strike to an aperture analogous to the thermal exhaust port.

In 34 ABY, during his self-imposed exile on Ahch-To, the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker experienced a dream depicting an alternate reality where he disregarded Organa's message and never joined the Rebellion, thus failing to destroy the Death Star. In this dream, the Death Star remained operational after his marriage to Camie Marstrap, and in addition to Alderaan, it destroyed Mon Cala and Chandrila.

The Death Star made its debut in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, identified simply as the "Death Star." Later sources, including Dawn of Rebellion and Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide, provided its more formal designations.

According to calculations by the British energy provider Ovo, operating the Death Star for a single day would cost 7.8 octillion dollars in real-world terms. Forbes also estimated the initial construction cost of the Death Star to be 825 quadrillion dollars.