History Main / SpaceStation

* ''VideoGame/DeepRockGalactic:'' the titular interstellar mining corporation has over 80 "Space Rigs" in orbit over the DeathWorld of Hoxxes IV, serving as quarters and launching points for DropPod insertions of combat miners. In-game, Space Rig 17 is the HubLevel where dwarves can interact with various terminals to select missions and assignments, customize their equipment and appearance, purchase weapon upgrades and craft cosmetic items, trade minerals for credits, honor the fallen in the Memorial Hall, get sloshed at the Abyss Bar, or drive MissionControl bonkers by kicking barrels into the Launch Bay. [[spoiler:There used to be 87 Space Rigs, but Space Rig 5 was lost during Season 4's story arc, when a [[AlienKudzu Lithophage meteor]], with [[ItCanThink uncanny aim]], smashed directly into its fusion reactor, killing all hands.]]

* A common setting for levels in many ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, what with Eggman having so many technological resources at his disposal that he often conmmands a space armada which makes those final challenges a fight at literally the height of his power:

Put a station near a star, and you have a StellarSation.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'''s Satellite of Love.

->'''Franchise/{{Batman}}:''' This Watchtower will act as an early warning system for detecting other threats of invasion from space.\\
'''ComicBook/TheFlash:''' And it has a fully stocked kitchen.

* The main cast of ''Anime/{{Planetes}}'' operate out of a space station in low-Earth orbit.

* ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'': The Abh tend to live almost exclusively on space stations, only visiting planetary surfaces when its absolutely necessary. This fits with their view of themselves; their society's name in their language means "Kin of the Stars", and they consider space to be their "homeland". Their capital Lakfakalle is a gigantic swarm of huge spacestations orbiting a star in a system with no habitable worlds.

[[folder: USSR/Russia]]

* Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' universe features many space stations, most of humanity's exosolar colonies are torus stations built first as research stations and later as trading posts since inhabitable planets are rare and FasterThanLightTravel wasn't developed for centuries after expansion started.

* ''VideoGame/Prey2017'' takes place on the Talos One station, privately owned by the TranStar corporation and being used to contain/research an alien race called the Typhon.

** Within your systems, you can building Mining Stations to extract minerals, [[EnergyEconomy energy]] or strategic resources from celestial bodies, while Research Stations make use of science-boosting features. These stations are presumably manned, but don't require any management beyond constructing them.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}: The 'Savage Chicken" and its crew and passengers have trvelled to the [[Creator/JerryPournelle Pournelle]] / [[Creator/LarryNiven Niven]] / station on a job that was ''supposed'' to net them a new reactor.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', the Death Star is a cross between a space station and a starship because it can travel between star systems under its own power, but is huge (and round) enough to be [[ThatsNoMoon mistaken for a moon]]. The [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse EU]] and ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' are absolutely in love with space stations, using them for everything from shipyards and defense platforms to casinos. A great many of them end up in little bitty pieces by the end of whatever work they appear in...

* Tiangong-1[[note]]"Heavenly Palace 1"[[/note]] (2011-2018): Launched by China, it was a testbed for the Chinese space program to develop their docking and rendezvous capabilities. The station was visited by two manned missions in 2012 and 2013, and more elaborate stations (Tiangong-2, Chinese large modular space station) are scheduled to be launched in the near future. A Tiangong-3 was planned but later merged with Tiangong-2 and was scrapped. Tiangong-2 was launched in 2016.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}: The 'Savage Chicken" and its crew and passengers have trvelled to the [[Creator/JerryPournelle Pournelle]] / [[Creator/LarryNiven Niven]] / station on a job that was ''supposed'' to net them a new reactor.

* In ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', the Galactic Empire has a penchant of constructing large space stations. For example, the two largest space fortresses featured, Iserlohn Fortress and Geiersburg Fortress, were built by the Empire. In the first Gaiden prequel series, it is even revealed that the Empire has constructed a huge artificial resort satellite which orbits a gas giant.

* Significant portions of ''VideoGame/{{MDK}} 2'' take place aboard Dr. Hawkins's space station, the ''Jim Dandy''. In the backstory, he built the station and moved into it after [[TheyCalledMeMad the scientific community ridiculed his theory of "flange orbits"]], vowing not to return to Earth without proof they actually existed. [[EpicFail One week after he moved onto the station, he realized flange orbits didn't actually exist.]]

* Britannia Seven from the poorly-regarded '70's sitcom ''Series/ComeBackMrsNoah''. Another unsuccessful British sitcom on the same premise was ''Astronauts'', written in TheEighties by Graham Garden and Bill Oddie of ''Series/TheGoodies'' fame.

* ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13''. Until the bombs start going off, then its just space.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stars}}'' allows space stations to be built around colony worlds. A race's homeworld gets one automatically at the start of the game and they provide defences for worlds, allow ships to be refuelled, and can even be fitted with stargates and mass drivers to allow ships and resources to be transported faster and more efficiently than using transport ships alone. For Alternate Reality races, they also provide a home for your colonists, since they cannot set foot on any world. The downside to this is, of course, should the station be destroyed, all the colonists will be killed.

* The Franchise/UltraSeries has a few: [[Series/UltraSeven Space Station V3]] (inspired by Thunderbird 5 above), [[Series/ReturnOfUltraman two MAT Stations]] (one swallowed whole by kaijuu Bemstar, the other blown up by the Nackle aliens), and [[Series/UltramanLeo the MAC Station]] (gobbled up by kaijuu Silver Bloom).

*** He also built Avalon out of a mixture of one of the versions of Asteroid M and Cable's then deactivated space station, Graymalkin, before it was eventually destroyed in a brutal battle between [[PhysicalGod Exodus]] and [[ObviouslyEvil Holocaust.]] The result was so vast that Cable successfully used the remains to build Providence, an entire floating ''city-state'', home to thousands.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E7TheLongGame Satellite Five]], a major news network that turns out to be built specifically to house the [[OverlyLongName Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe]]. The Doctor returns there [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf later]] to find that, a hundred years later, the station, now called the Game Station, has become home to deadly reality and game shows ([[spoiler:as a front for the Daleks to take humans and make more Daleks from them]]).

%%Please keep these to stations that play a major part in the plot of a work. This trope is pretty much ubiquitous in SpeculativeFiction, of all levels on the MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness.

* The semi-fiction futurist writings of Gerard O'Neill from the seventies and eighties, especially ''Literature/TheHighFrontier''. All the technologies outlined in the books are based on theory and designs from real academics. O'Neill is often credited for inventing these types of designs; he did not. However, he did move a lot of them ''quite'' far along MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness.