Through the Strategic Design Project conducted by MSSDM students at Parsons School of Design, we collaborated with NASA on a aimed at reimagining how the International Space Station (ISS) communicates its legacy and future relevance as it nears decommissioning in 2030. The challenge centered on how the ISS could extend its cultural, scientific, and diplomatic influence into the emerging “New LEO”— a commercialized, collaborative, and inclusive ecosystem in low Earth orbit.
Through interviews with NASA personnel, stakeholder mapping, and speculative design, our team identified three core threads of ISS’s legacy: accumulated knowledge, its guiding role in human space presence, and its position as a precedent for future endeavors. We developed prototypes such as NEO, a future-facing community model rooted in values of exploration, innovation, and equity. This project aimed to ensure the ISS continues to inspire and shape the evolving space narrative—anchored in the ethics of global commons and collective progress.