The Astro Orbiter is a "rocket-spinner", aerial carousel-type attraction featured at five Disneyland-style parks and Walt Disney Resorts around the world, except for Tokyo Disneyland.

Over the years, with each new iteration of the ride debuting, new designs, thematic schemes, and locations have been implemented to fit with the changing themes of several Tomorrowlands.

The "jets" made a 50-foot circle around a large red-checkered rocket and guests were able climb upwards of 36 feet in their ride vehicles from the ground level they were boarded at.

The mechanism for Rocket Jets on top of the PeopleMover was re-used as a kinetic satellite-themed sculpture known as the Observatron, built from the same skeletal structure.

No form of the attraction existed in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World until 1974, three years after the park's opening, when Tomorrowland underwent a massive expansion including the creation of Space Mountain, a new location for the Disneyland-attraction, Carousel of Progress, and the WEDWay PeopleMover.

The Star Jets were considered the focal point of Tomorrowland due to its soaring, spinning rockets and central location.

On January 10, 1994, the original Star Jets closed in order to undergo a complete makeover as part of the New Tomorrowland.

The attraction was re-designed and re-opened on April 30, 1994, as the Astro Orbiter, part of the complete renovation of the park's Tomorrowland section.

[8] In the 1994-2009 narration for the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, the ride was referenced as the "League of Planets Astro Orbiter."

Known as Discoveryland, the land took on a retro-science-fiction style inspired by some of Europe's greatest writers, such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.