The enmeshing of the partners, legally and technically, in the ISS gives an affective push or imperative to ensure that the diplomatic assemblage succeeds. The legacy of APAS speaks to a historic moment that reverberates to this day. While the political optics of orbital docking are a remnant of the Cold War era, new challenges have arisen in its stead. The number and variety of spacecraft have increased in subsequent decades and orbit is becoming increasingly crowded. For now, we rely on formal and informal diplomatic mechanisms to keep outer space peaceful. Further, as we have argued, foregrounding materiality, for instance through material institutionalisation and enmeshing of states in a diplomatic assemblage in the case of the ISS, sheds light on how co-operation continues despite contentious terrestrial politics.