hey, I thought you may be able to help cause I can’t seem to find the answer anywhere, what is the propulsion system on the death star? any other relevent specs would also be awesome. — Eric
The Death Star I
The Death Star (Make: MK1 deep-space mobile battle station) has a diameter of 99.4 miles and 84 levels of 4,684 ft. each. Levels are divided into 357 sublevels of 13.1 ft. high. It houses about a million individuals and thousands of armed vessels. This includes a crew of 342,953 (285,675 operational craft, 57,278 gunmen, and 843,342 passengers, which I think includes officers, Stormtroopers, and admiralty).
It was built around a hypermatter reactor. “A fusion reactor of incredible proportions, fed by stellar fuel bottles lining its periphery, produced the raw energy demanded by the Death Star’s superlaser and propulsion systems. Much of the station’s interior volume was filled by the machinery necessary to sustain such a fusion core, with sublight propulsion systems and defense field generators lining the outer equatorial regions. Realspace propulsion was handled by an external array of powerful ion engines, which converted the raw fusion energy of the station’s core into thrust and pressed the stations great mass into any motion dictated by the Death Star’s huge navicomputer banks. . . . The Death Star’s hyperspace motivator units were comprised of linked banks of field generators such as those found aboard Imperial Star Destroyers. One hundred twenty-three individual hyperspace generators, tied into a single navigational matrix, were necessary to carry the Death Star beyond the speed of light. The intense power generated within the battle station, combined with its great mass, gave it both magnetic and artificial gravitational fields equal to those of a natural body many times its size.”
Its actual specs are this–it has a Class 4 hyperdrive. Engines: SFS-CR27200 hyperdrive reactor powering 123 Isu-Sim SSPO6 hyperdrive generators. 2 Sepma 30-5 sublight engines. Armaments: 1 superlaser (range: 29,241,719 mi); 5,000 Taim and Bak D6 turbolaser batteries; 2,500 Borstel MS-1 ion cannons; 768 Phylon tractor-beam emplacements; 11,000 combat vehicles (probably including AT-ATs, AT-STs, and TIEs of a variety of makes). Its maximum speed is 1.2c.*, and its fuel is compressed stellar hydrogen.
Its manufacturer was the Imperial Department of Military Research and Sienar Fleet Systems. The designers were varied–the concept came from Rath Sienar but was stolen by Grand Moff Tarkin. Further development took place by Geonosian Hive Engineers, and it was finalized by Bevel Lemelesk. It was built in three different locations–Geonosis, the black hole cluster called Maw Installation, and was completed with slave labor in orbit around the penal colony Despayre (which then became the first planet the space station destroyed).
So, there you have it! My sources were The Complete Cross-Sections, The Complete Locations, and The Technical Journal. MTFBWY!
* Johnson does not define the unit “c” anywhere in The Technical Journal, and it is not referenced anywhere in any other material.
