DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station

The DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station, also designated as the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, referred to as the Ultimate Weapon in early development stages, later known as the Death Star I or the First Death Star, and often simply referred to as the Death Star, was a moon-sized, deep-space mobile battle station constructed by the Galactic Empire. It had been designed to fire a single planet-destroying superlaser powered by massive kyber crystals which would destroy any planet targeted. It was the pet project of Emperor Palpatine, Director Orson Callan Krennic, and its eventual commander Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin to expound the military philosophy of the aptly named Tarkin Doctrine.

Some of the earliest plans for a mobile, planet-destroying superweapon dated back millennia to the ancient Sith. Thousands of years later, shortly before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, the Geonosians, aligned with Count Dooku and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, designed the Ultimate Weapon in secret. After the fall of the Confederacy, construction of the Death Star was appropriated by the nascent Empire. It was built in orbit of Geonosis and supported by a complex logistical network of bases. The station, which took many years longer to complete than expected, was eventually moved from Geonosis to Scarif in its final stages of construction.