Orbital

New on the 2026 VCE English and EAL text list. Orbital is a List 1 novel for Reading and responding to texts. 2026 is its first year on the list and it is also on the 2027 list. VCAA's reference edition is Vintage (2024). Because it is new, no VCAA exam has set topics on it yet; the topic patterns below are based on how VCAA frames topics for other List 1 texts.

The novel in brief

Orbital follows one day aboard a space station orbiting Earth, during which the station circles the planet sixteen times, bringing sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Six astronauts share the station: two Russians, Roman and Anton; an American, Shaun; a British woman, Nell; an Italian, Pietro; and a Japanese woman, Chie. They work, exercise, eat, sleep, carry out experiments (including work with mice, which do not cope well with weightlessness), maintain the station and talk to the ground and to their families.

There is very little plot in the usual sense. Two events on Earth frame the day. Chie has learned that her mother has died, and she grieves far from home and from any funeral. A huge typhoon is gathering over the Pacific and moving towards South-East Asia; the crew watch it grow from above, able to see it whole and unable to do anything to help the people in its path. Meanwhile, a crewed mission is launched towards the Moon, and the station crew, doing their routine work in low orbit, feel their own mission overshadowed. As the orbits pass, the astronauts reflect on their lives, their relationships and memories, their faith or lack of it, and the planet below.

Author and context

Samantha Harvey (born 1975) is an English novelist and essayist. Orbital was published in 2023 and won the 2024 Booker Prize. Harvey has said she wrote much of it during the COVID-19 lockdowns, after setting the idea aside for years because she had never been to space; she described the result as a kind of space pastoral rather than science fiction.

Context you can use (always linked to a topic):

• The International Space Station. The novel's station is modelled on the ISS, a joint project of the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada. The VCAA annotation notes that political tensions and national borders leave only a trace on the station, where the crew live and work in harmony.
• The overview effect. Many real astronauts have described a shift in perspective on seeing Earth whole from space: borders disappear, and the planet appears fragile and shared. Harvey's descriptions draw on this idea.
• Climate and vulnerability. The typhoon, and the visible marks of human activity on the planet, connect the novel to anxieties about climate change and ecological damage.
• Lockdown. Written in a period when many people were confined and separated, the novel's picture of people living in a small space, apart from those they love, gains resonance.
• Human progress. The Moon launch and the station's experiments raise questions about exploration, knowledge and what we miss while we pursue them, which the VCAA annotation highlights.

Form and structure

• One day, sixteen orbits. The chapters follow the station's orbits across a single day. The repetition of orbits gives the novel a cyclical rhythm, and the compressed timeframe sets human routines against the vast scale of the planet.
• Roving third-person narration. The narration moves freely between the six astronauts and often speaks of them collectively. It also steps back to describe Earth, its continents, weather and lights, from a perspective beyond any single character.
• Lyrical, cumulative prose. Long sentences, lists and sweeping descriptions of land, sea, cloud and light turn description into meditation. Much of the novel's meaning is carried by its imagery.
• Minimal plot. The lack of dramatic incident is a deliberate choice. The novel suggests that ordinary life, even in extraordinary circumstances, is made of routine, memory and attention.
• Juxtaposition of scales. The personal (Chie's grief, a crew member's family, a small task) is placed against the planetary (the typhoon, the continents, the Moon launch). Look for how Harvey moves between them within a single passage.

The six astronauts

• Chie. A Japanese astronaut grieving the death of her mother. Her grief brings mortality, family and the distance from home into sharp focus.
• Shaun. An American astronaut and devout Christian, who reads the view of Earth through his faith and misses his wife.
• Nell. A British astronaut whose reflections bring out the strangeness of living apart from the planet and the life she has left.
• Pietro. An Italian astronaut with a reflective, philosophical cast of mind.
• Roman and Anton. Two Russian cosmonauts, experienced and practical, whose private thoughts about home and relationships show what they have given up to be in orbit.

Because the novel spreads attention across the crew, strong essays treat them as a collective as well as individuals: six people from nations that are rivals on Earth, working as one small community.

Ideas, concerns and values, and how they are built

Perspective and distance

From orbit, the astronauts can see the whole Earth but none of its details: no people, no borders, no individual suffering. Harvey uses this double vision to ask what distance reveals and what it hides. The typhoon is the clearest example: seen whole, beautiful and terrible, but unreachable.

The beauty and fragility of Earth

Extended descriptions of the planet's colours, weather and light make the reader see Earth freshly, as precious and vulnerable. The VCAA annotation stresses the overwhelming beauty of human life on Earth and its vulnerability.

Unity beyond borders

The crew's nations may be in conflict on Earth, but on the station they depend on each other completely. Harvey suggests that borders are human inventions that vanish from a wider perspective.

The ordinary and the extraordinary

The astronauts' lives are full of mundane tasks (cleaning, exercise, meals, experiments) in the most extraordinary setting imaginable. The novel honours routine and suggests that attention to the ordinary is a form of meaning.

Grief, time and mortality

Chie's loss, the sixteen sunrises in a day and the orbit's endless repetition make time strange. The novel asks how humans hold grief and memory when normal time has been disrupted.

Progress and its limits

The Moon launch and the experiments embody human ambition and curiosity. Harvey both celebrates and questions this drive, asking what we overlook when we are busy striving.

Key moments and why they matter

1. Waking on the station. The routines of a day in orbit establish the texture of ordinary life in an extraordinary place.
2. Chie's grief. News of her mother's death, and Chie's attempt to grieve in orbit, bring mortality and distance into the novel.
3. The typhoon. Watched growing across the day, it dramatises the tension between the crew's god-like view and their powerlessness.
4. The Moon launch. Another crew heads further out, and the station crew see their own work as yesterday's news. It raises questions about ambition, progress and value.
5. Experiments and maintenance. Work with mice and the constant upkeep of the station show science as patient, repetitive care.
6. The descriptions of Earth. Passages that follow the planet's surface through day and night are some of the novel's most important evidence; choose a few you can analyse closely.
7. The day's end. The orbits continue, the crew's day closes, and the planet turns on.

How VCAA frames topics on List 1 texts

VCAA's 2024 and 2025 exam reports describe three topic types: a proposition followed by Discuss, Do you agree? or To what extent do you agree?; a quotation from the text followed by a proposition or question; and a direct question such as How does...? or To what extent...?. Each text gets two narrow topics about specific ideas and values, often setting up a relationship between two concepts or using an absolute word to test.

For Orbital, likely areas include: what distance and perspective reveal or conceal; the beauty and fragility of Earth; unity and division; the meaning of ordinary life; isolation and connection; grief and time; and whether human progress is worth its costs.

Practice topics (original, not from VCAA)

These are practice topics written for this page in the VCAA style. They are not past exam topics.

1. In Orbital, distance allows the astronauts to see what matters most. Discuss.
2. How does Harvey use the typhoon to explore the limits of human power?
3. Orbital suggests that the ordinary is more remarkable than the extraordinary. To what extent do you agree?
4. The astronauts in Orbital are more connected to each other than to the people they have left behind. Do you agree?
5. In Orbital, Earth is presented as a home worth protecting. Discuss.

Planning example

Topic (practice)

In Orbital, distance allows the astronauts to see what matters most. Discuss.

Contention

Harvey shows that distance gives the astronauts a rare vision of Earth as whole, beautiful and borderless, but she also shows what distance costs: it hides individual suffering and separates them from the people and places they love.

Paragraph 1: distance reveals the whole

Analyse the lyrical descriptions of Earth across the orbits, and the way borders disappear from view. Link to the crew's unity despite their nations' rivalries.

Paragraph 2: distance hides the human

The typhoon is seen whole but its victims are invisible. Analyse how Harvey juxtaposes the storm's beauty from orbit with what it means on the ground.

Paragraph 3: distance and grief

Chie's mourning shows the pain of being far from home at the moment that matters most. Analyse how the narration handles her grief within the routine of the day.

Paragraph 4: what matters most

The novel's attention to ordinary tasks and small moments suggests that what matters is found close up as well as from afar.

Conclusion

Orbital holds both views: the astronauts see the planet as few people ever will, and that vision makes them long for the detail of life on its surface.

Common pitfalls

• Retelling a plot that barely exists. Focus on structure, narration and imagery.
• Treating it as science fiction. Harvey's aim is realism and reflection, not speculation.
• Ignoring the individual astronauts. Even brief character details (Chie's grief, Shaun's faith) are useful evidence.

Read the novel

Orbital is in copyright, so this page analyses the novel without quoting it. VCAA's reference edition is Vintage (2024), available from your school or local library.

Sources

• VCE English and EAL Text List 2026 and Text List 2027, VCAA.
• 2025 VCE English examination report and 2024 examination report, VCAA.
• VCE English and EAL Study Design (version 1.4), VCAA.