<Tr> <Th> First appearance </Th> <Td> Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (novel, 1976) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Affiliation </Th> <Td> Galactic Empire </Td> </Tr> <P> A number of fictional mobile space stations and galactic superweapons called Death Star featured in the Star Wars science - fiction franchise . The first Death Star was stated to be more than 100 km to 160 km in diameter, depending on source . It was crewed by an estimated 1.7 million military personnel and 400,000 droids . Its superweapon delivered enough energies on a scale equivalent to all the energy released by the Sun in an entire week . The second Death Star was significantly larger, between 200 km to 400 km in diameter depending on source, and technologically more advanced than its predecessor . Both versions of these dwarf planet - sized fortresses were designed for massive power projection capabilities, capable of destroying an entire planet with one blast from their superlasers . </P> <P> Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during production of Star Wars, the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometers in diameter was consistent in all of them . George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell, who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey . In a 2016 interview, Cantwell related that "I didn't originally plan for the Death Star to have a trench, but when I was working with the mold, I noticed the two halves had shrunk at the point where they met across the middle ." As it "would have taken a week of work just to fill and sand and refill this depression," Cantwell suggested a trench to Lucas to save the labor . Lucas liked the idea, and the Death Star model was created by John Stears . The buzzing sound counting down to the Death Star firing its superlaser comes from the Flash Gordon serials . Portraying an incomplete yet powerful space station posed a problem for Industrial Light & Magic's modelmakers for Return of the Jedi . Only the front side of the 137 - centimeter model was completed, and the image was flipped horizontally for the final film . Both Death Stars were depicted by a combination of complete and sectional models and matte paintings . </P>

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