No Man's Sky Cosmos Update Grants Space Station Ownership and Orbital Bases

Hello Games released No Man's Sky Update 7, "Cosmos," on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, introducing space station ownership and orbital base building to mark the game's tenth anniversary. For a title that originally launched on August 9, 2016, under a heavy cloud of unfulfilled hype, a decade of massive, free updates has turned "fixing it in post" into an ongoing galactic tradition.

The Cosmos update shifts the focus entirely off planet surfaces and into the deep void, Hello Games detailed in its official patch notes. Players can now claim space station directorships, giving them the authority to customize station interiors, add rooms to hangars, and hang massive exterior decorations around the outside of their celestial real estate—proving that even in the infinite reaches of the cosmos, someone still has to pick out the hallway carpet.

The details

• New features: Space station directorship, orbital bases, Galactic Alliances, deep-space maps
• Vehicles & tools: Corvette tractor beams, improved Gravitino Coil handling
• Special event: Expedition 23 ("Our Journey Continues") is expected to launch on or around September 10, 2026, and will run for six weeks until approximately October 22, 2026.
• Tech upgrades: Rewritten block compression (BC) texture encoder, improved terrain tessellation, and upgraded volumetric fog

Who runs the station?

To make the galaxy feel more active, the update introduces a Galactic Alliance system. Players who secure a station directorship can found their own alliance, establish custom names and banners, and recruit other travellers to join their collective.

According to Hello Games, players can join up to three alliances, with a central leaderboard at the space station core tracking which group is the most active or has the most members. It is a structured way to play together, though the local universe remains vast enough that finding another player still feels like spotting a specific grain of sand at the beach.

If a pre-fabricated station feels too corporate, players can now deploy a deep-space computer to construct orbital bases from scratch in empty space or on top of large, resource-rich asteroids. The update introduces new corridor base parts and station decoration pieces to help players construct their personal high-altitude hideouts.

Deep-space demolition and floating yards

For those who prefer taking things apart rather than building them up, the update adds interactive solar system maps accessible via the Quick Menu to locate "space hulks." These colossal shipwrecks can be salvaged for resources like contaminated metal and comet dust. To facilitate the haul, players can equip a new Tractor Beam utility part on Corvette starships to drag physical cargo into their holds. Hello Games warned that these hulks are highly volatile; stripping too many parts will trigger a meltdown phase.

Spacewalking has also been overhauled with true six-degrees-of-freedom movement, allowing players to roll in zero-g. Spacewalking now drains your exosuit's cold protection rapidly unless players stay close to high-heat hazards, and nearby explosions will physically knock players backward.

Alongside the sandbox changes, the studio is launching Expedition 23, "Our Journey Continues." The anniversary event features developer commentary from Sean Murray for each milestone. Nostalgia-themed rewards include a golden edition of the game's original Rasamama S36 starter ship and a retro diplodocus pet as seen in the game's original pre-launch trailers.

Why it matters

The Cosmos update cements No Man's Sky's reputation for perpetual reinvention. By moving base building into deep space and adding organizational alliance systems, Hello Games is shifting the game from a solitary exploration sandbox into a more cooperative, structured universe. Ten years in, the game is still expanding, proving that sometimes the best way to deal with gravity is to simply ignore it.