COLUMBUS, Ohio — Astronauts who will soon transfer from the International Space Station to Vast’s commercial replacement are required to fill out a 47-page branding questionnaire before their pre-launch briefings, according to NASA’s newly released orbital identity guidelines.

“We’re not just building a station in space, we’re building an identity,” said Dr. Elena Chen, Vast’s Chief Brand Officer, during a press conference that was interrupted when a piece of thermal control equipment detached and fell back to Earth, an event the company promptly renamed “Orbital Detachment Event 2026: Aesthetic Series” rather than the more accurate and less marketable “Space Station Component Failure.”

The ISS is scheduled to decommission in 2030, but the transition to commercial stations has introduced a whole new layer of existential bureaucracy. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services division has now issued a mandate that all future orbital habitats must have “brand personality profiles,” “customer journey maps,” and “mission alignment narratives” approved by the Office of Science and Branding Standards.

“We’re not trying to monetize the view, we’re trying to monetize the identity,” Chen said in an interview from inside the station during her brief visit to the orbiting laboratory, where she demonstrated how astronauts must now sign a non-compete clause before eating their morning oatmeal to avoid “brand contamination.”

According to the new guidelines, a station’s name must pass three rounds of “brand resonance testing,” “space-faring sentiment analysis,” and “intergenerational appeal scoring.” Early candidates like “Liberty Orbit,” “Future Habitation Complex,” and “Eternal Horizon” were rejected because they “lacked emotional friction points,” “didn’t leverage enough aspirational tension,” and “failed to create a viral hashtag moment.”

The winning concept will reportedly include “a strong emotional hook for Gen Alpha astronauts” and “potential for TikTok-enabled orbital experiences.”

“We’re talking about 200,000 pounds of aluminum in a microgravity environment,” said Dr. Marcus Holloway, NASA’s Deputy Administrator. “But we also need to talk about ‘brand equity’ and ‘user experience’ because the astronauts deserve the best.”

The branding exercise has already consumed what would normally be spent on thermal coating research, radiation shielding improvements, and life support system redundancy. Vast’s Haven-1 is now scheduled to launch in February 2027, with a “brand reveal event” planned for 2026, complete with a “mission launch trailer” and “orbital brand activation” strategy that will cost more than the entire station’s initial construction.

Meanwhile, astronauts are told not to discuss the ISS’s impending retirement unless it’s framed as “a transition opportunity” rather than “the end of an era.” Any mention of “home in space” is discouraged in favor of terminology like “orbital habitat experience” and “low-Earth orbit lifestyle solution.”

As for the name itself, current finalists include:

  • Orbita (rejected for “sounding too much like a pharmaceutical company”)
  • Nebula (rejected for “not sufficiently terrestrial” in branding terms)
  • Vertex Station (rejected for “too much existential dread”)
  • Elevate (currently under review)
  • Haven-1 (officially selected, though “hasn’t quite captured the emotional resonance yet”)

The real issue is that the ISS, built by 15 countries with 26 years of accumulated experience, is being replaced by a station whose primary innovation is its ability to “create a memorable emotional moment through name selection” rather than through scientific breakthrough or engineering excellence.

“We’re not trying to replace a 300-ton orbital laboratory with another,” said Chen. “We’re trying to create a brand that astronauts want to talk about in their retirement applications.”

For now, the astronauts preparing for transfer continue their work in a space station that’s been orbiting Earth since 1998, while NASA’s bureaucracy prepares for a future where the only thing that will launch into orbit is the latest “brand equity survey” rather than a satellite.

The question now is: when astronauts step off the ISS in 2030, will they remember the place that gave them a home in space, or will they only remember the branding workshop they were forced to attend before boarding their shuttle?