STAR TREK DISCOVERY USS Enterprise had to be redesigned for legal reasons

After a rocky start, Star Trek: Discovery eventually picked up some reasonable critical responses for its first season. The cast came in for a lot of praise, along with the season-spanning plot complete with some clever (if unfortunately over-foreshadowed) twists. The show had a rougher ride from other Star Trek fans, however, for its apparently random redesign of aspects including the Klingon makeup and the design of the original Constitution-class USS Enterprise, which appears in the closing moments of the first season.

Designer John Eaves has confirmed that the Enterprise had to be partially redesigned for "legal reasons". When CBS split from Paramount in 2005, it created a bit of a quagmire for the Star Trek franchise. CBS inherited the rights to make new TV series (such as Discovery) whilst Paramount inherited the right to make new movies (such as the Abrams movies and the threatened Tarantino movie).

This legal situation proved confusing as to what company owned the rights to which models and designs. As a result, it was decided that the Enterprise needed to look "25% different" to the original version of the ship to ensure there was no legal problem.

Whether this applies to the surreal decision to radically redesign the Klingons remains to be answered, although it should be noted that Discovery did get away with keeping the designs for the Andorians and Vulcans almost identical to their original incarnations, and the Tellarites pretty close.

This analysis from TrekCore shows that the Discovery Enterprise has many callbacks to previous versions of the ship, including the original series version, the version seen in the first six movies and the differing versions seen in the original two pilots.

Filming on Season 2 of Discovery is now underway and the show is expected to return either at the very end of this year or (more likely) in early 2019.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E)

 The Sovereign-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-E), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2368-71. The ship was commissioned and launched in 2372 under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The Enterprise-E served with distinction during a Borg incursion in 2373, defeated a Son'a ship at Ba'ku in 2375 and helped defeat the Reman warlord Shinzon in 2379. It was still operational in 2387 when Romulus was destroyed by a hypernova, sparking a major shift in the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant.

Class History

Whilst the Galaxy-class was undergoing its lengthy gestation period (running from roughly 2344 through to the first ships entering service in 2363), Starfleet developed a large number of new technological breakthroughs and concepts. These ideas were field-tested on a number of smaller ships developed alongside and after the Galaxy, such as the Nebula, Intrepid and Akira-class, not to mention the new weapon systems developed for the (controversially) combat-oriented Defiant-class, but it was decided in the early 2360s that a new class was needed to combine these elements into one large, front-of-the-line design.

The Sovereign-class was developed throughout the mid-2360s. The development process for the class was much faster than for the Galaxy for several reasons. Whilst the Galaxy was developed in peacetime, the Sovereign began its development during a period where the Romulan Star Empire was resurgent, where the Klingons had undergone a brief but tumultuous civil war and the Borg had emerged as a serious new threat to the entire quadrant. In addition, the Galaxy was designed to be the largest ship in Starfleet and entirely new types of propulsion, life support and computing power had to be developed to help it fulfil that goal. The Sovereign was, instead, designed to be the most advanced starship, building on those technologies already present in the Galaxy rather than having to design them from scratch.

The prototype USS Sovereign was launched for pathfinding trials circa 2369 or 2370. The next batch of Sovereign-class vessels were nearing construction when word came of the destruction of the Galaxy-class Enterprise at Veridian III in 2371. One of the under-construction ships was immediately given the name Enterprise.

The USS Enterprise orbiting Earth.

Operational History

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) was launched in late 2372, approximately one year after the destruction of the Enterprise-D. After the destruction of the Enterprise-D, its highly decorated and experienced crew was expected to be promoted and scattered across Starfleet. However, Captain Picard requested that his crew be kept together and assigned to the new Enterprise. Starfleet and the crew agreed, apart from Lt. Commander Worf who accepted reassignment to space station Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9: The Way of the Warrior).

In 2373 the Enterprise-E responded to a Borg assault on Earth. Using Picard's knowledge of the Borg, gained when he was temporarily their prisoner during the 2366-67 crisis (ST:TNG: The Best of Both Worlds), Starfleet was able to destroy the Borg vessel. A Borg sphere ejected from the main cube and travelled back in time to 2063 to try to prevent First Contact between Earth and Vulcan, thus preventing the founding of the Federation. The Enterprise-E was able to pursue and stop the plan in its tracks, resetting the timeline (Star Trek: First Contact).

With the outbreak of the Dominion War in late 2373, the Enterprise-E was assigned to support duties. The Sovereign class had the strongest offensive arsenal in Starfleet, but as there were relatively few of the ships in service or under construction Starfleet preferred to depend on the Galaxy-class as its heavy capital design of choice. The Sovereigns were deployed only where the heaviest punches were needed and it was unlikely they would be lost. Although this meant that the Federation didn't lose any of the class at the disastrous Second Battle of Chin'toka in 2375 (when some 300 Federation, Klingon and Romulan ships were destroyed by the Dominon and their Breen allies in arguably the worst defeat of the war), it also meant that the design failed to see much action. The class was notably absent during Operation Return, the largest battle of the war, the First Battle of Chin'toka and even the final assault on Cardassia Prime at the end of the war. Controversially, in 2375 Starfleet decided to redeploy the Enterprise-E to diplomatic duties well away from the front line.

During these duties, the Enterprise-E was ordered to allow the Son'a to forcibly relocate the inhabitants of the planet Ba'ku against their will. Captain Picard defied orders and forced the Son'a to abandon their claim. This resulted in tremendous controversy, as the Son'a later defected to the Dominion side of the conflict, but it was later ruled that Picard had acted correctly in upholding the principles of the Federation even in a time of war (Star Trek: Insurrection).

In 2379 the Enterprise-E was assigned on a diplomatic mission to Romulus, designed to help foster closer relations in the wake of the victory of the Federation-Romulan-Klingon Alliance during the Dominion War. However, the Enterprise crew discovered the Reman Praetor, Shinzon, had staged a coup and attempted to seize control of the Star Empire. Assisted by loyalist Romulan forces, the Enterprise-E was able to destroy Shinzon's flagship and kill him. The wake of this assistance, the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation entered a new and closer period of cooperation and assistance (Star Trek: Nemesis).

By 2387 the Enterprise-E remained in service, having served for almost twice as long as her predecessor. By this time Jean-Luc Picard had retired from Starfleet and accepted a new role as the Federation Ambassador to Vulcan. William Riker had assumed command of the USS Titan and Chief Engineer La Forge had become a leading science and propulsion expert. Command of the Enterprise-E passed to Captain Data, the first android to command a Starfleet vessel. The Enterprise-E lent assistance to the Narada, a Romulan mining vessel that had almost been destroyed mining decalithium in the Hobus system. The Hobus star had gone supernova, but the decalithium-rich asteroids and planets in the system added to the power of the nova. The supernova became a hypernova capable of travelling through subspace as well as normal space. The resulting explosion destroyed Romulus merely months after it began, and threatened to obliterate a vast swathe of the Alpha Quadrant. Ambassador Spock, using the experiment substance known as red matter, was able to collapse the hypernova back in on itself into a singularity, ending the threat to the rest of the galaxy. Spock, the Narada and its captain, Nero, were all lost and presumed killed in this incident. (Star Trek: Countdown and Star Trek (2009) ).

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-E was a Sovereign-class starship. It was launched in 2372 and remained in service fifteen years later in 2387. This meant that it served - at minimum - longer than the Enterprise-C (12 years), Enterprise-D (8 years) or Enterprise-A (7 years), but not as long as the original Constitution-class Enterprise (40 years) or the Enterprise-B (36 years).

The vessel was commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard ("surviving" several efforts to promote him) for its first decade in service before he retired from Starfleet altogether. By 2387 Picard's long-serving android second (and later first) officer Data had become Captain of the Enterprise.

The Enterprise-E was 685 metres (2,248 feet) long, 250 metres (820 feet) wide and 88 metres (290 feet) tall. Although 40 metres longer than the Enterprise-D, it was only half the height and width and had significantly smaller internal volume. In fact, it was even thinner and shorter than the Enterprise-C. The crew complement was estimated at somewhere between 650 and 700. The Enterprise-E did not have families or civilians on board outside of specialised and specific mission requirements, meaning it did not need as much as space as its predecessor. The ship launched with only 24 decks compared to the Enterprise-D's 42. However, circa 2376 the ship underwent a minor refit which enlarged the secondary hull and increased the number of decks to 29.

The ship was moderately faster than the Galaxy-class, capable of attaining Warp 9.95 for brief periods of time. Its armaments were superior, mustering sixteen phaser arrays and ten torpedo tubes. The Enterprise-E was armed with both photon and the higher-yield quantum torpedoes.

The Enterprise confronts the Reman battlecruiser Scimitar in 2379.

Behind the Scenes

The destruction of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations necessitated the design of a new Enterprise for the following movie, First Contact. The miniatures team had assumed that the ship would be replaced by another vessel of the same class (as had happened with the original Enterprise and the Enterprise-A) and had in fact re-labelled the Galaxy-class model with "NCC-1701-E" markings. In the event it was decided to build a new ship.

Herman Zimmerman and John Eaves designed the basic look of the ship, although the first pass had swept-forwards warp nacelles. Everyone liked this idea until someone said it looked like a chicken in a pan, at which point they moved the nacelles into the more traditional swept-back configuration. Rick Berman signed off on the design in early 1996, meaning that the model had to be built and shot with extreme rapidity. Fortunately, improving fabrication technologies meant that the model could be constructed much more quickly and much more cheaply than its predecessors. A CGI replica of the ship was constructed at the same time, with the movie moving between the two as required. Paramount was so impressed by this, unable to discern when a physical model was being used and when the computer-generated one was, that they mandated that all future movies would use CGI only for the ship models. Thus, First Contact marks the one and only appearance of the actual physical model for the Enterprise-E.

By the time Star Trek: Nemesis was released in 2002, the CGI model had been updated to feature more weapons, the reasoning being that Starfleet would up the ship's firepower as a result of the Dominion War.

The Enterprise-E, and indeed the Sovereign class as a whole, did not appear in Deep Space Nine or Voyager. The logic was that this was Starfleet's most advanced, cutting-edge design and the ship would not be used lightly in battles or on risky missions during the war. As a result, Nemesis remains the final appearance of the ship on-screen. However, a comic book was produced for the J.J. Abrams 2009 movie which tied the plot of that movie into the so-called "prime timeline". Declared canon by the film's writers, the comic reveals that the Enterprise-E remained operational and in service in 2387, fifteen years after launch.

Officially, the Enterprise-E is still the "current" Enterprise as far as the prime timeline is concerned. With twenty years since its first on-screen appearance, that makes it the longest-serving "current" incarnation of the vessel (compared to 18 years for the original Enterprise, 7 for the Enterprise-A and 7 for the Enterprise-D).

Meanwhile, in another timeline...

The Odyssey-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-F), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2405-09. The ship was commissioned and launched in 2409 under the command of Captain Va'Kel Shon. The Enterprise-F is 1,062 metres (3,484 feet) long, 374 metres (1,227 feet) wide and 148 metres (485 feet) tall.

Star Trek Online, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, depicts the Enterprise-E being crippled by the Undine in the year 2408. The ship is able to escape, but has to be scuttled due to the severity of the damage done to the basic spaceframe. The game depicts the ship being replaced by the Odyssey-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) a year later. The Odyssey is the largest and fastest class of starship ever built by the Federation, featuring cutting-edge new technologies and weapon systems. It should be noted that Star Trek Online and the events in it are explicitly not regarded as canon, but unless future live-action projects are undertaken in the old canon (which the new 2017 TV series may or may not be), its events may be the closest we get to an official continuation of the prime timeline.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)

The Galaxy-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-D), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2359-63. The ship was commissioned and launched in 2363 under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, its only permanent commanding officer. The Enterprise-D was lost at the Battle of Veridian III in 2371, having served for eight years. It was destroyed in battle with a renegade Klingon Bird-of-Prey, although the Klingon vessel was also destroyed.

Class History

By the early 2340s Starfleet had found itself in need of a new type of starship to propel its exploration and science programmes further forward. The Excelsior class was still performing excellently after fifty years in service, but was starting to show its age. The Ambassador, although a solid design, had not been the jump forward in capability first envisaged. The Federation's borders had expanded significantly and the limits of explored space even further outwards, covering a significant swathe of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants of the galaxy. Faster and more powerful ships, able to operate autonomously for longer periods of time, were required. But there were some recruitment issues with crewmembers potentially spending many years away from home and their loved ones. This led to the inception of the Galaxy Project.

The Galaxy-class starship was envisaged as a major, paradigm-shifting design. These huge starships would carry over a thousand people, including civilians and families, to the furthest reaches of space. They would be equipped with weapons and sensors capable of handling any possible threat and they would be equipped for tasks ranging from deep space exploration to diplomatic missions to planetary evacuations. The design hurdles were formidable, with the warp core alone requiring colossal amounts of research and development. The Galaxy-class's computer system was also tremendously advanced: upon completion, it became the most sophisticated mobile computer in the entire Federation.

R&D of the Galaxy-class began in the mid-2340s. Around this time, in 2344, the Ambassador-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) was destroyed whilst defending the Klingon outpost on Narendra III from Romulan attack. This act of bravery and honour helped lead to the signing of the formal Klingon-Federation Alliance at Khitomer (a world itself symbolic for an earlier peace deal in 2293 and suffering another Romulan attack in 2346) several years later. Out of respect for the estimated 700 crewmen who lost their lives, Starfleet did not immediately commission a replacement Enterprise. When the Galaxy Project was formally approved, it was agreed that one of the first ships in the class would be named Enterprise instead.

The final design of the Galaxy-class took some time to pin down, with Starfleet being distracted by the outbreak of a long (if mostly low-intensity) war against the Cardassian Union. The Federation also had a brief conflict with the Tzenkethi circa the late 2350s. Finally, somewhere around 2358-60, construction began of the initial Galaxy-class spaceframes at Utopia Planitia Shipyards, on and above Mars. Twelve ships were first envisaged, but only six were built to completion, with the remaining six being held back for new technologies to create a second wave of vessels, due to enter service in the late 2360s. The first three ships to be commissioned were the USS Galaxy, USS Yamato and USS Enterprise (all in service by the start of 2364). Among the ships that followed were the USS Odyssey, USS Venture, USS Challenger and USS Magellan.

The Galaxy-class was immensely successful, furthering exploration at the edges of Federation space, responding rapidly to threats and flying the flag in every corner of space. However, the decision to allow families and civilians on board the ships proved controversial. In early 2365, an alien computer virus overwhelmed the systems of the USS Yamato and shut down the antimatter containment field, completely obliterating the ship and killing over a thousand people, including children (ST:TNG: Contagion). The USS Odyssey was destroyed in battle with three Jem'Hadar warships in 2370, sparking the long Federation-Dominion cold war. Fortunately, the Odyssey had offloaded her civilian crew at Deep Space Nine prior to the battle, but still hundreds of lives were lost (ST:DS9: The Jem'Hadar). The USS Enterprise suffered a series of calamities during its storied seven-year lifespan, including the deaths of dozens of crewmembers, before the ship was finally destroyed at Veridian III in 2371 (Star Trek: Generations), although civilian casualties were minimised thanks to a successful saucer separation manoeuvre. The fate of the Galaxy class may have briefly hung in the balance after the loss of half the ships in service less than eight years into the class lifespan, but the growing threat of the Dominion convinced the Federation to complete the remaining spaceframes and also commission many more. This proved tactically sound: although several more Galaxy-class starships were lost in the Dominion War of 2373-75, the class soon became the mainstay of Starfleet, finally replacing the ageing Excelsior-class.

Starfleet ceased placing families on its front-line starships following this time with the succeeding Sovereign-class of starships only holding enlisted Starfleet officers and civilian researchers in related fields.

The Enterprise-D encounters the Borg for the first time.

Operational History

The USS Enterprise was launched in late 2363 from Utopia Planitia Shipyards above Mars, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. After a shakedown cruiser, the vessel was ordered to Farpoint Station to pick up the rest of her crew. During this mission the Enterprise made first contact with the mysterious species known as Q (ST:TNG: Encounter at Farpoint). The Enterprise-D soon found itself enjoying a career even more epic and storied than its predecessors. In seven years, the Enterprise initiated first contact with dozens of species, carried out numerous scientific and diplomatic missions and found itself tested against the best ships from other races. The Enterprise crew helped open (often-fractious) relations with the Ferengi Alliance (The Last Outpost) and also became the first Federation crew in twenty years to make contact with a Romulan starship (The Neutral Zone). During several subsequent confrontations (The Enemy, The Defector, Tin Man), the Enterprise acquitted itself well against the formidable Romulan D'deridex-class warbird, helping the Romulans choose the path of renewed diplomacy rather than military conflict.

The Enterprise also proved instrumental in helping resolve the Klingon Civil War of 2367-68 in favour of Chancellor Gowron, who favoured continuing the alliance with the Federation (Reunion, Redemption, Unification). Gowron's enemies, the House of Duras, were engaged in a secret pact with the Romulans. Their defeat ensured the continued Federation-Klingon Alliance and that the two sides would remain allied (a brief breakdown in 2372 excepted) when the Dominion War erupted.

However, the Enterprise's biggest test came in 2365 when it made first contact with the Borg Collective. Thanks to the machinations of the Q, the Enterprise-D was propelled over 7,000 light-years from Federation space in the direction of the Delta Quadrant. It made contact with a single Borg cube near system J25, which had been laid waste by the Borg. The Enterprise initially held its own against the Borg vessel, rendering over 20% of it inoperable, but in the process the Borg learned how to adapt to Federation weapon systems. The ship then became invulnerable. Eighteen Enterprise crewmen were killed and heavy damage inflicted on the the ship before the Q pulled the Enterprise back to Federation space (Q Who?). Starfleet immediately began researching new weapons and defences to use against the Borg, assuming it would be several years before the Borg became a serious threat, but less than fifteen months later a Borg cube (possibly the same one) arrived in Federation space. The single vessel cut a swathe through the Federation, destroying the colony on Jouret IV and obliterating thirty-nine starships at the Battle of Wolf 359. It also took Jean-Luc Picard prisoner and (temporarily) converted him into a Borg. The Enterprise crew recovered Picard and, using the neural link between him and the Borg ship, destroyed the vessel just before it could attack Earth (The Best of Both Worlds).

The Enterprise would continue to serve with honour and distinction until 2371. Whilst attempt to defeat a murderous El-Aurian scientist named Soran, the Enterprise-D was attacked by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey commanded by the vengeance-hungry Duras sisters. The sisters managed to identify the shield frequency used by the Enterprise and direct their weapons fire straight through the shields. The Enterprise retaliated and destroyed the Bird-of-Prey but the ship had suffered catastrophic damage to the warp core, leading to a cascade systems failure of the antimatter containment system. The crew evacuated to the saucer section, which was jettisoned from the rest of the vessel before it exploded. The saucer section successfully executed a crash-landing on the surface of Veridian III. The crew were subsequently rescued, but the saucer was unrecoverable (Star Trek: Generations). Many of the crew transferred to the new USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E), which entered service within two years (Star Trek: First Contact).

The Enterprise-D's saucer section crash-lands on Veridian III in 2371.

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-D was a Galaxy-class starship. It was launched in 2363 and destroyed almost eight years later, in 2371. The ship had an extremely busy and storied career, although of all the ships named Enterprise it had the second-shortest career (beaten only by the Enterprise-A and its seven-year mission before being decommissioned). However, from construction to destruction it had the shortest lifespan of any vessel named Enterprise.

The Enterprise-D was 642 metres (2106.3 feet) long, 473 metres (1,552 feet) wide and 190 metres (623.4 feet) high. It had 42 decks. It had a rated crew and passenger complement of 1,012, although depending on mission variables and guests this could fluctuate significantly. The ship was rated to carry 15,000 people in cramped conditions during a planetary evacuation. Thanks to its extremely wide saucer section compared to previous models, the Enterprise's internal volume was approximately twelve times greater than the Constitution-class Enterprise.

The Galaxy-class was the fastest ship in Starfleet, until it was overtaken by the Intrepid-class in the early 2370s. The ship had a safe cruising speed of Warp 8.2 and could sustain Warp 9.6 for several hours. In an emergency situation the vessel could briefly attain Warp 9.8. It also had one of the most formidable defensive arrays of any Federation starship, mustering ten phaser banks with wide arcs of fire and three forward-facing phaser cannons mounted in the nacelle struts and above the main torpedo launcher. The ship possessed three torpedo launchers. Like many other Federation starships it had the ability to split into two vessels during emergency situations, with the civilian crew expected to take shelter on the saucer section whilst the stardrive section engaged the threat. The relative long time it too to separate the sections and the fact that the saucer was deprived of warp power (making escaping a threat more difficult) meant that this ability was employed only four times during the lifespan of the vessel. It did, however, ultimately save the crew from the vessel's final destruction.

The Enterprise-D had three shuttle bays and a large number of auxiliary craft, including standard shuttles, runabouts and a Captain's Yacht.


Behind the Scenes

When Paramount decided to resurrect Star Trek as a TV series, it was decided that the show would take place on a new incarnation of the Enterprise (Gene Roddenberry briefly pondered simply directly beaming people from star system to star system, but decided that would make for poor drama). Originally dubbed the Enterprise-7, this was changed to the Enterprise-J when Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home introduced the practice of adding a letter to the registry number. After further refinement this was changed to the Enterprise-D.

The task of designing the ship fell to Andrew Probert, who had worked on the Star Trek feature films and co-designed the refit version of the ship. Probert found the task rather more straightforward than it could have been: whilst working on The Motion Picture he'd drawn an idea for a radically more advanced and futuristic Enterprise. When he went to work on TNG he hung the picture in his office. Writer David Gerrold spotted it and suggested that Gene Roddenberry take a look. Roddenberry liked it and approved it pretty quickly.  The biggest modifications from the original design were rethinking the engines to look better and to permit the ship to be capable of splitting in two.

Two shooting models were built, a small two-footer for long-shots and a six-foot large model for close-ups. However, the six-foot model was quite large and unwieldy to shoot. In Season 3 a four-foot interime model was introduced which became the shooting mainstay. However, the four-footer could not separate and, for reasons of cost, writers were encouraged to have shots featuring this model. This explains why saucer separations no longer took place after the third season. At the end of the seventh season the four-foot model was partially rebuilt with an extra nacelle and weapons to become the futuristic Galaxy-class variant seen in the ST:TNG series finale. These changes were reversed for the model's re-labelling and appearance as the USS Odyssey and USS Venture in Deep Space Nine's second and fourth seasons.

A CG Enterprise-D was built for some shots in Star Trek: Generations and then upgraded for use on Deep Space Nine, particularly during the numerous battle sequences during that show's sixth and seventh seasons. Controversially, the Enterprise-D made a cameo appearance in the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2004, making it actually the most recent prime timeline Enterprise to appear in Star Trek.

Appearing in all 178 episodes of ST:TNG, one episode of DS9 and one of Enterprise, along with one feature film and dozens of video games, the Enterprise-D is by far the most frequently-used, filmed, photographed and shot Enterprise to appear in the entire Star Trek franchise. Ironically, according to the franchise's timeline it had the shortest lifespan at less than eight years (the Enterprise-A arguably served for a shorter period of time, but it was retired from service rather than destroyed).

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C)

The Ambassador-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-C), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2329-32. The ship was commissioned and launched in 2332 under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett, its only commanding officer. The Enterprise-C was lost at the Battle of Narendra III in 2344, having served for twelve years. It was destroyed in battle with four Romulan warbirds. Its destruction whilst defending a Klingon outpost paved the way for the Klingon-Federation Alliance.

Class History

Circa 2290, Starfleet began mass-production of the Excelsior class of starship. Considerably larger, faster and more powerful than the Constitution class (which was then phased out of service and retired), the Excelsior became the mainstay of Starfleet for almost a century, its spaceframe proving highly adaptable and easily upgraded to deal with new mission requirements and threats. The long lifespan of the Excelsior may have also been helped by the relative period of peace that descended following the Khitomer Accords of 2293: the Federation and the Klingon Empire entered into a more fruitful and cooperative relationship, which also seems to have discouraged aggression by other powers such as the Romulans, Tholians and Gorn.

By the late 2310s, however, the Federation saw the need to begin development of a new heavy starship design which could replace the Excelsior class. Increased contact with the Cardassian Union, previously a smaller power which had now launched a series of aggressive moves into the surrounding systems and in 2319 launched a devastating invasion of Bajor, may have been one reason for this decision. Gradually decreasing contact with the Romulans after 2314 and the fear that the Romulans were consolidating and rebuilding their forces may have also spurred a renewed period of Starfleet development.

That said, the Federation did not want to upset the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant and was keen that this new ship's primary role would be peaceful, devoted to scientific research and diplomacy over combat. The new class was thus dubbed the Ambassador. The first ship of the class appears to have been launched in the late 2320s. Several more ships were laid down and under construction when word arrived in 2329 that the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) had been lost in deep space after thirty-six years in service. The decision was made that one of the new ships would be dubbed Enterprise in honour of her service and the ships that came before her.

By the 2340s several dozen Ambassador class starships were in service and performing with distinction. Despite their formidable qualities, the ships appear to have not satisfied the need for a replacement for the Excelsior: there was rarely a situation which an Excelsior couldn't handle which an Ambassador could, and the continuing upgradeability of the Excelsior class simply made it more economical in terms of resources and construction time. It appears that by the mid-2340s the decision had been made to abandon the Ambassador class design in favour of an vastly more ambitious scheme: the Galaxy Project.

Operational History

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) was launched in 2332 under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett. One of the youngest Starfleet captains commissioned since James T. Kirk, Garrett was noted for her toughness, excellent command judgement and canny command skills. Over the next dozen years the Enterprise-C dealt with dozens of tense diplomatic encounters, difficult science missions and several military engagements, from which the ship always emerged victorious. During this period the Romulans, who had become more reclusive, began a new period of aggressive skirmishing with both the Federation and Klingon Empire. The Klingons were also engaged in an eighteen-year period of conflict with the Cardassian Union which the Federation also refused to get involved with. An apparently tepid response by the Federation to these threats angered the Klingons, who, having recovered from the destruction of Praxis fifty years earlier, had begun having second thoughts about their new peaceful relationship with the Federation.

This brinkmanship resulted in the Battle of Narendra III in 2344. Four Romulan warbirds launched a direct assault on the Klingon colony at Narendra III, inflicting severe damage on the planet. The colony sent out a request for aid, which the Enterprise-C responded to. Although the ship was outgunned it nevertheless committed to the battle, inflicting severe damage on the Romulan vessels. Halfway through the engagement the damaged Enterprise-C suddenly underwent a spontaneous regeneration of its shields and weapon systems, suggesting that the Federation had developed some kind of new weapons technology, but the matter remains classified. Despite its valour, the Enterprise-C was destroyed with all hands. The ferocity of the attack had destroyed some of the Romulan ships and damaged the rest so badly they were forced to withdraw, saving the outpost from destruction (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Yesterday's Enterprise and Redemption, Part II).

Although the loss of the Enterprise-C was a serious blow to Starfleet, it had a remarkable effect. The Klingon Empire honoured the crew of the ship and convinced the Federation to renew diplomatic and military pressure on the Romulan Star Empire to cease its warmongering. This resulted in a brief tripartite peace agreement between the Federation, Romulans and Klingons. However, this lasted just two years before the Romulans broke the agreement and launched an attack on Khitomer in 2346. The ferocity of the attack stunned both the Federation and Klingons and almost resulted in war. This was only averted when the Federation instead found itself in a war with the Cardassian Union and the Klingons were distracted by internal politics. The Romulans, perhaps aware that they had nearly triggered a conflict they could not win, retreated entirely behind their borders for the next twenty years.

As usual, Starfleet moved to name a new starship Enterprise. However, aware of the Galaxy Project they decided not to name a new ship immediately and hold back until that project reached fruition.


Ship Overview

The Enterprise-C was an Ambassador class starship, launched in 2332 and destroyed in 2344. It was an early-model Ambassador, featuring less advanced weapons and sensors than the models that entered service in the 2340s and 2350s like the USS Excalibur (probably the most famous ship of the class after the Enterprise), but still outclassing anything else in the Federation, Klingon or Romulan arsenals.

The Enterprise-C was 524 metres (1,720 feet) long, 283 metres wide (928.5 feet) and 102 metres (334.6 feet) tall. It had at least 700 crew, although some ships of the class by the late 24th Century may have had closer to a thousand. The ship had 33 decks and was the first class to use phase "strips" rather than the "banks" containing multiple phaser cannons used on previous designs. These strips allowed phaser fire to be directed from anywhere on their surface, massively expanding the angles of fire the ship could employ. This was tremendously useful when it came to handling multiple attackers simultaneously.

Andrew Probert's concept art for the Enterprise-C from ST:TNG's first season. He envisaged the ship as an evolutionary stage between the Excelsior and Ambassador classes.

Behind the Scenes

When Star Trek: The Next Generation entered production in 1987, the set of the meeting room was decorated with stylised versions of the previous ships to bear the name. It was assumed that the Enterprise-B would be an Excelsior-class starship, but the design of the Enterprise-C was unknown. Andrew Probert, who had designed the Enterprise-D and worked on the movies, created a sort of stumpy version of the Galaxy-class, which also drew on elements from the Excelsior as a kind of halfway house between the two. He also drew a colour sketch of what he imagined the ship looked like.

During the production of Season 3 two years later, it was decided to film a script called Yesterday's Enterprise. In this script the Enterprise-C is flung twenty-two years into the future and creates an alternate timeline in which the Federation is at war with the Klingons. The ship has to be sent back to restore the timeline. Rick Sternbach was tasked with designing the ship in a hurry and on a budget, so was able to just tweak Probert's design. Model-maker Greg Jein produced the final ship model for $10,000. This was a lot to spend on the model for a new ship, but it was helped by the fact that the studio had given the team a budget hike for the episode as it was going to air in a ratings "sweeps" week.

Yesterday's Enterprise was a massive, smash-hit success. It would go on to be named several times as the best-ever episode of the entire Star Trek franchise (although today it generally shares that honour with The Inner Light, The Best of Both Worlds, City on the Edge of Forever, In the Pale Moonlight and Far Beyond the Stars).

The Ambassador-class model was redetailed and altered to appear in subsequent episodes such as Redemption and the Deep Space Nine pilot, Emissary, but made no subsequent appearance. No CGI shooting model was ever built, leading fans to conclude that the Ambassador never fulfilled its original purpose of filling in between the Excelsior and Galaxy classes, with the Excelsior simply proving a much more successful and longer-lasting design than anyone had ever envisaged.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B)

The Excelsior (variant)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-B), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2290-93. The ship was commissioned and launched in late 2293 under the command of Captain John Harrison. The Enterprise-B was lost in 2329, having served for thirty-six years, making it the second-longest-serving Enterprise after the Constitution-class version.

Class History

In the late 2260s and early 2270s Starfleet made the decision to radically overhaul its fleet of starships and outfit them with the latest technology. This led to the creation of more compact and efficient ships like the Miranda class and the refitting of the venerable Constitution class (in service since the early 2240s). The decision was also made to develop a new and very formidable heavy cruiser, a new flagship class for the fleet. This ship would be outfitted with weapons and defences that would dwarf older ships and would also be outfitted for long-term, deep-space exploration and scientific research.

There would also be another requirement for this ship: it would be the fastest ship in the fleet and the fastest in Federation history. Breakthroughs in warp science had led to the creation of the transwarp theory, which could propel a ship from a standing start to speeds surpassing Warp 9.9 in seconds and then sustain that speed safely and indefinitely. This would allow Federation starships to travel between systems in hours rather than days, between sectors in days rather than weeks and traverse known space in a couple of months rather than in two years or more. It would confer on the Federation a massive strategic advantage over potential enemies, and rapidly increase the speed of its  exploration of the galaxy.

So was born the "Great Experiment", the transwarp drive, and the need to design and build a new spaceframe capable of handling it. It was decided to draw on the highly successful primary/secondary hull arrangement of the Constitution class but in a vessel that was almost twice the size. By the late 2270s this design had been finalised and construction of the pathfinder/prototype ship of the class began in great secrecy. That ship was designated USS Excelsior, construction number NX-2000.

The Excelsior was completed in 2285 and transferred to Earth's new Spacedock facility to begin field tests on its transwarp drive under the auspices of Captain Styles. Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott, respected for his two decades of service on the USS Enterprise, was transferred to Excelsior to help with the trials. However, Admiral James T. Kirk stole the Enterprise to undertake an unauthorised mission. Scott joined him, sabotaging the Excelsior's transwarp control computer so it could not pursue. This resulted in an unplanned system cascade failure that immobilised the entire ship. The Excelsior had to be towed back into Spacedock for repairs (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock).

"The Great Experiment", USS Excelsior (NCC-2000). Designed in the 2270s, built circa 2280-84 and completed in 2285. The ship was finally commissioned in the late 2280s and undertook its first long-term mission under Captain Hikaru Sulu in 2290-93.

No sooner was the ship operational again then the "whalesong" crisis of 2286 took place and the Excelsior was shut down and neutralised by an alien probe entering Earth orbit, along with the entire Spacedock and the USS Yorktown (soon to be renamed the Enterprise-A). Based on the subsequent disastrous performance of the Yorktown, it could be that the Excelsior was likewise adversely affected by the alien probe's passing and took some time to return to operational status (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Excelsior finally began its much-delayed transwarp test missions circa 2287, but by 2289 these trials had concluded unsuccessfully: the transwarp drive was a failure, unable to sustain the transwarp field for very long and unable to deliver the promised speeds. However, although the transwarp drive itself was proclaimed a failure, the ship's spaceframe design was considered excellent and performed even better than had been expected in non-transwarp-related areas. In 2289-90 Starfleet finally formally commissioned the starship, redesignating it NCC-2000 and refitted it with a standard warp drive system. Captain Hikaru Sulu, formerly of the Enterprise, was placed in command of the Excelsior for its first three-year mission cataloguing gaseous anomalies in star systems in the more distant regions of the Beta Quadrant. The Excelsior was returning to Federation territory via the Neutral Zone when the Klingon moon Praxis exploded. A subspace shockwave damaged the Excelsior, which alerted the Federation to the situation. Sulu continued to monitor subsequent events, such as the trial of Captain Kirk for the murder of Chancellor Gorkon, and brought the Excelsior to Khitomer to support the Enterprise. The two starships bracketed and destroyed the Klingon Bird of Prey commanded by the treacherous General Chang, helping to end the crisis (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

Starfleet also began building a series of new ships using the same spaceframe and design, now confirmed as the Excelsior-class. This class of starship would soon become the mainstay of Starfleet, with at least dozens and possibly hundreds of starships of this design being built over the next century. The Excelsior-class was still serving with honour and distinction during the Dominion War (2373-75) and ships of this class helped welcome the USS Voyager home after its seven-year exodus to the Delta Quadrant (2378). The Excelsior-class even outlasted the class that had been intended to replace it, the Ambassador, and construction of the ships only began to fall off with the introduction of the more versatile Galaxy class in the 2360s.

With the Excelsior-class entering full production circa 2290, the decision was also made to revamp and revise the design with a variant class which was even more powerful. The decision what to name the first ship of this variant was made when Starfleet - controversially - decided to retire the Constitution-class in 2293.

The USS Enterprise encounters the Nexus energy ribbon on its maiden voyage in 2293.

Operational History

Starfleet had planned to build a series of Excelsior-class starships since designing the ship in the late 2270s. However, it only enacted this plan once the spaceframe for the ship had been tested in the field. Construction of the first batch of ships began circa 2289/90, with at least one of these ships being of the new variant type. The variant type was equipped with additional impulse drives to deliver greater performances at sublight and had its hull design expanded to accommodate greater cargo and living space.

When it was announced that the Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was being retired after seven years in service, it was decided that the first ship of the variant class would be named the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The Enterprise-B was formally commissioned and launched in late 2293, just a few months after the Enterprise-A was retired following the Battle of Khitomer. Captain John Harriman was placed in command for its maiden voyage. However, Starfleet decided to invite Captain James T. Kirk and two of his former crewmen, Captain Scott and Commander Chekov, on the mission. During this mission the Enterprise-B received a distress call from an El-Aurian ship trapped in an energy ribbon known as the Nexus. The Enterprise-B successfully executed a rescue mission, but suffered severe damage to the secondary hull in the process. During this mission it appeared that Captain James T. Kirk had been killed. However, classified documents later confirmed that Kirk had been drawn into the Nexus (which acted as the gateway to a parallel universe) itself. He escaped in 2371 and was finally killed battling an El-Aurian terrorist named Soran (Star Trek: Generations).

Despite this inauspicious start, the Enterprise-B went on to serve with great distinction and honour. The ship became one of the more decorated to bear the name Enterprise before its destruction in 2329, after thirty-six years in service. It only narrowly missed out on the record set by the Constitution-class Enterprise (NCC-1701), which served for forty years (2245-85).

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-B was a variant Excelsior-class starship, predominantly based on the pathfinder/prototype design of the USS Excelsior but differing in several key respects. The Enterprise-B was one of the first Federation starships designed with a separable saucer section which was designed to operate autonomously and then rejoin the rest of the ship later on. This required the addition of two impulse drives to the saucer to allow it to function by itself. The engineering hull was also modified to allow for more cargo and living space. This proved helpful as the Enterprise-B's very first mission was an evacuation one, and this space allowed more people to be placed on board.

This variant of the standard Excelsior design later fell out of favour, with only a few other starships (such as the USS Lakota) using the same design. The relative infrequency with which the variants needed to engage in saucer separations and the much greater cost/benefit ratio of the standard class saw the Federation switch back to using the original Excelsior design from the early 2300s onwards.

*The Enterprise-B was 511.25 metres (1,677 feet) long, 195.64 metres (642 feet) wide and 86.76 meters (285 feet) tall. The ship had about 30 decks. It had a crew of approximately 750 and employed 10 dual emitter phaser banks and 6 photon torpedo tubes, some of them aft-facing. This contrasted dramatically with the Constitution-class's more modest 6 dual emitter phasers and 2 forward-facing photon torpedo tubes. The Enterprise-B could sustain Warp 9 for considerably longer than its predecessor, with a cruising speed of Warp 7 (compared to Warp 5 for the previous ship).

* The sizing of the Excelsior class has been problematic ever since the original ship was designed in 1983, as the ILM effects crew did not actually decide on a scale for the ship. Aside from the general idea that it was a bigger ship than the Enterprise, no final size determination was made. This was complicated by the lack of details on the model to compare to set details (i.e. the Excelsior bridge was a simple dome with no roof window or other element to compare to the size of the actual bidge set) and the fact that the ship model was deliberately built to be smaller and easier to shoot than the massive and ungainly Enterprise studio model. The matter was address by scaling shots in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country showing the two ships next to each other, with the Excelsior dwarfing the Enterprise.

The matter was supposed to be settled by the publication of The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which gave the figures above for the size of the Excelsior-class, apparently drawing on the CGI models built for Deep Space Nine's last two seasons. Although "official", these figures are not necessarily canon and contrasting figures of c. 450 metres (for length) and only 500 crewmembers are given in other sources.

The USS Excelsior confronting a Klingon K'Tinga-class battlecruiser in 2293.

Behind the Scenes
The decision to build a new, "super" Federation starship was made by producer Harve Bennett during the writing of Star Trek III: The Seach for Spock. The script called for the Excelsior, a ship larger and more powerful than the Enterprise, but coming from the same design family: a B-29 bomber compared to the original ship's B-17. David Carson and Nilo Rodis-Jamaro of Industrial Light and Magic were predominantly responsible for early designs of the ship, with Bill George finalising the design.

The idea was that the new ship would make the Enterprise feel antiquated, until Scotty turns the tables and sabotages the ship. However, many Star Trek fans liked the Excelsior - it was actually only the third Federation starship class to ever appear on screen after the Constitution and Miranda (a fourth, the Oberth, appeared only minutes later in Star Trek III) - and it went on to make brief appearances in Star Trek IV and V. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the ship played a larger role as Sulu was promoted to Captain and placed in command of the ship. It also played a key role in Flashback, a third season episode of Star Trek: Voyager which was written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise in 1996.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation began production in 1986 it was decided that the show would be set on an Enterprise a century removed from the NCC-1701-A introduced in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This eventually became the Galaxy-class NCC-1701-D. However, to show a sense of design continuity it was decided to have a wall display showing the intervening ships to bear the name. With the USS Excelsior proving to be a fan-favourite design, it was an easy decision to make the Enterprise-B a ship of that class. In addition to this, the writers decided to use the Excelsior model to represent other Federation starships in ST:TNG, including the USS Hood, USS Repulse and USS  Farragut. The idea was that the Excelsior-class was an experimental, cutting-edge design in the late 23rd Century but by the mid-24th had become a standard, even slightly outdated starship model.

It was originally assumed that the Enterprise-B and C would never appear on screen, but this changed in the third season ST:TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise, which depicted the Enterprise-C. When Ronald D. Moore was given the task of co-writing the movie Star Trek: Generations, which would see the original series crew handing over to The Next Generation team, he decided to depict the events in the past on the Enterprise-B. The Enterprise-B was a redress of the Excelsior model, adjusted with new impulse engines on the saucer and extensions to the secondary hull. These extensions were to both sell the ship as a variant design and also so one of them could be blown off in the Nexus without damaging the original model underneath. Unfortunately, after filming it was discovered that the adhesive used to fix the new parts in place could not be easily removed, so the extensions were left in place. This is why the USS Lakota in Deep Space Nine's fourth season is also a variant Excelsior-class of the same type as the Enterprise-B. This was the last time that the model was used, so when it was eventually auctioned off the model was still labelled as the Lakota.

For the Voyager episode Flashback in 1996, a new Excelsior model was needed. This model was built at half the size of the original, and was used in several scenes. Although smaller than the original, the model was deemed good enough to appear several times on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well. However, by the time that show entered its final two seasons it had transitioned to CGI. The smaller Excelsior model was used as the study and guide for these CGI versions, explaining why the Enterprise-B variant was no longer seen in the other series.

No formally canonical explanation has ever been given for the final fate of the Enterprise-B. However, several short stories and a couple of reference guides state that the ship was lost in 2329 after the crew contracted an unknown infection. The ship was presumably scuttled to prevent this infection from passing onto others. The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C was commissioned in 2332 to replace it. Although these dates have not been confirmed by any TV series or movie, every book, reference guide and new ship model released in the last few years has used these dates, making them the most consistent to be used.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

The Constitution (refit)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-A), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2283-86. The ship was originally supposed to be called the Yorktown, but was renamed Enterprise in honour of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew. The ship was launched in 2286 but was retired just seven years later in 2293, after the Praxis Crisis. It is the shortest-serving Federation starship to carry the name Enterprise and one of only two (so far) not to have been destroyed in the line of duty.

Operational History

The USS Yorktown was a Constitution-class starship, built in Earth orbit. Construction of the vessel was completed in 2286 and the ship was moved to the Spacedock station for final fitting and launch. However, the so-called "whalesong" crisis then erupted when an alien probe approached the planet and neutralised all Starfleet facilities in orbit, shutting them down. The crisis was averted thanks to the actions of the disgraced Admiral James T. Kirk and his crew, who had stolen the USS Enterprise (and subsequently lost it in battle with a Klingon Bird of Prey) earlier that year. Kirk's crew was exonerated and Kirk was given a two-grade demotion from Admiral to Captain, due to extenuating circumstances. The Yorktown was renamed Enterprise and given a registry chance to NCC-1701-A. The ship was launched shortly after Kirk was appointed commanding officer (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Enterprise-A suffered significant systems failures shortly after launch. It is possible that the ship suffered malfunctions as a result of the probe's activities, or the attempts to rush the ship's completion to meet the threat before the probe arrived. Whatever the cause, the problems were so immense that Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott had to oversee a thorough repair and upgrade of the whole ship. This was still in process when the Nimbus III hostage crisis erupted in 2287, forcing the Enterprise to go into a hostile situation without functioning transporters (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier).

In 2293 the Enterprise-A was assigned to escort Klingon Chancellor Gorkon to Earth to discuss a final peace deal between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. However, Gorkon was killed during this meeting and the blame put on Kirk's shoulders. Kirk's crewmates, aided by Captain Hikaru Sulu and the crew of the USS Excelsior, were able to exonerate Kirk and prevent a further peace conference on Khitomer from being attacked (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

The Enterprise-A was retired, with the new Excelsior-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) being launched several months later (Star Trek: Generations). The ultimate fate of the Enterprise-A is unknown, although some sources suggest it was retired and served as a museum ship in Earth orbit for some decades afterwards.

The USS Enterprise-A just before her official launching in 2286.

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-A was a Constitution-class starship which was superficially identical to the refit version of the original Enterprise. However, being built from scratch with newer technologies meant that the Enterprise-A had some technical advantages over the older ship, including a more advanced computer system. Unfortunately, being rushed into service during the whalesong crisis and suffering an unplanned total power failure meant that the ship took some considerable time to recover and get back into service.

The Enterprise-A was 305 metres (1,000 feet) in length, 145 metres (476 feet) in width and 76 metres (249 feet) in height. Its crew was estimated at around 430 (similar to the pre-refit Constitution-class). The ship consists of approximately 20 decks, with the main bridge making up Deck 1. The ship has a forward-facing dual photon torpedo launcher and at least six dual phaser banks for offence, and powerful energy shields for defence. Compared to the original Constitution-class, the refit model is slightly longer and wider. It has considerably larger cargo bays than the original vessel, and a new and far more advanced warp drive capable of driving the ship past Warp 9 for longer periods (although Warp 5 remained the preferred cruising speed).

Although still a spaceworthy and capable design, the Enterprise-A suffered severe damage in its engagements with the smaller Klingon Bird of Prey design: although more compact, the Bird-of-Prey was capable of outflying and the outgunning the Federation's Constitution-class. At the same time, the Federation was starting to see the benefits (after several false starts) of the Excelsior-class, which was considerably larger, faster, more powerful and more heavily armed than the Constitution whilst also being capable of greater scientific research. The Federation seems to have made a tactical decision circa 2293 to retire the Constitution-class altogether and split its fleet design between the large Excelsior-class, the more nimble and manoeuvrable Miranda-class and the dedicated Oberth-class science vessels (along with a score of variant designs). Although some Constitution-class ships remained in service, most of them were retired over the next few years. The retirement of the Enterprise-A was particularly surprising, given that the ship was only seven years into its lifespan.

The Enterprise-A suffers a hull breach during the Battle of Khitomer.

Behind the Scenes

Matt Jefferies, the designer of the original Enterprise, developed a newer and more modern look for the ship for the planned Star Trek: Phase II TV series. However, after Phase II was cancelled and turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a much higher budget, Gene Roddenberry authorised a much more thorough update to the design. A team including Richard Taylor and Andrew Probert created the final version of the new Enterprise which was used in the movie. The Enterprise's change of shape and appearance was described as being the result of a refit of the original series vessel.

The final shooting model, packed with light systems, was considered to be very impressive and has been cited as the best-looking version of the Enterprise. Unfortunately it was also very heavy, cumbersome and unwieldy. The effects team found that setting up shots with the Enterprise model was time-consuming and extremely awkward. When producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer suggested using that the model pull double-duty as both the Enterprise and Reliant for The Wrath of Khan, the effects team had a collective panic attack and persuaded them that they could build and shoot a whole new model far faster and more efficiently than the Enterprise. When the team were told that the Enterprise was going to be destroyed for The Search for Spock, they requested permission to smash the model to pieces with a hammer. They were turned down, and with some dismay were told to label the model as the Enterprise-A for the next three movies. The model last appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

After the Enterprise-A's first appearance in The Voyage Home, fans speculated how the Federation was able to build a new Enterprise so quickly. The easy answer was that the ship had actually just been renamed, with Yorktown eventually emerging as the commonly-given original ship name. However, fans were confused when the ship was retired just seven years later in The Undiscovered Country when her predecessor served for over 45 years. Various answers were suggested, including the one that the Yorktown had also been a refitted original Constitution-class starship and was also very old, although this does go against the implication of the ship being brand-new in The Final Frontier. Ultimately, it was concluded that the ship design had simply become outmoded and obsolete given the advent of the Excelsior-class.
 
The problems involved in shooting the refit/Enterprise-A model helped Andrew Probert when he developed the Enterprise-D for Star Trek: The Next Generation, although in the event the original Enterprise-D model was also deemed too large and unwieldy for easy shooting.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek has featured many planets, ships and space stations as its settings over the years, but the most popular, iconic and enduring is one vessel in particular: the starship USS Enterprise. To date there have been seven starships to bear the name (and an eighth in a parallel universe). The first to appear was the Constitution-class USS Enterprise of the original series and the first three Star Trek movies, also known as the original, or "NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C or D!". It is - arguably - the most iconic spacecraft ever created for television or film.

The Constitution-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701), built by the United Federation of Planets in 2243-45. It underwent several small refits before being almost completely rebuilt in a major overhaul in 2271-73. The ship was destroyed during combat operations with a renegade Klingon Bird of Prey over the Genesis Planet in 2285.

Operational History
This Enterprise, designated Naval Construction Contract 1701, was designed and partially built at Starfleet Engineering Headquarters in San Francisco on Earth. Final construction and assembly took place in Earth orbit. Construction of the Enterprise took over two years, from 2243 to 2245. The ship was dedicated and launched in either late 2245 or early 2246. The ship's first commanding officer was Captain Robert April. In 2252 April was promoted to Commodore and he was replaced as the CO of the Enteprise by Captain Christopher Pike. Lieutenant Spock joined the crew the same year, initially serving as part of the science team. The following year Pike took the ship on a famous mission to Talos IV (The Cage).

Christopher Pike commanded the Enterprise for approximately twelve years before being promoted to Fleet Captain. He left the ship in 2265 and was replaced by Captain James Tiberius Kirk, one of the youngest captains in Starfleet. Spock, by now promoted to Commander, became first officer. The Enterprise was assigned to a five-year tour of duty involving both exploring new regions of space and carrying out military, diplomatic and scientific missions within Federation space. This famed five-year mission is noted for the re-opening of relations with the Romulan Star Empire (Balance of Terror, The Enterprise Incident), first contact with the Tholians (The Tholian Web) and the Gorn (Arena) and several run-ins with the Klingons (too many to easily relate). This five-year mission also saw the Enterprise recover noted 20th/21st Century warlord and criminal Khan Noonian Singh recovered from cryogenic suspension. After a failed attempt to capture the Enterprise, Kirk chose to abandon Khan on the remote planet Ceti Alpha V rather than kill him, a decision he may have later rued (Space Seed).

Notable features of the USS Enterprise.

The Enterprise completed its five-year mission in 2270, returning to Earth for a thorough overhaul and refit. During the Enterprise's long career Starfleet had made highly significant improvements in starship engineering, weapons and propulson. The resulting 18-month refit (lasting from late 2271 to early 2273), which almost took as long as the original construction, saw the ship near-completely rebuilt. During this time James Kirk was promoted from Captain to Admiral and replaced as CO by Captain Willard Decker. The new-look Enterprise was deployed before it was fully ready to meet the threat of V'Ger, a computer intelligence that was guiding a massive starship towards Earth. Three Klingon battlecruisers and the Federation space outpost Epsilon IX were destroyed before the Enterprise crew was able to negotiate for V'Gar to depart Federation space (Star Trek: The Motion Picture). Willard Decker was reported lost during this mission, so was replaced by the newly-promoted Captain Spock as CO.

For the next thirteen years the Enterprise engaged in further diplomatic, military and scientific missions in Federation space and beyond its borders. However, the ship also became increasingly used for the purposes of training new crewmembers. In 2285 Kirk decided to personally accompany one such training mission. During this mission the Enterprise encountered the warlord Khan Noonian Singh, who had escaped from Ceti Alpha V by stealing the Miranda-class starship USS Reliant and a terraforming device known as Project Genesis. The Reliant ambushed the Enterprise and inflicted extremely heavy damage on the ship. The Enterprise managed to escape and return the favour, ambushing the Reliant in the Mutara Nebula. During the resulting battle the Reliant was destroyed and Khan killed. However, the Enterprise sustained heavy damage to its warp core and was unable to flee. Captain Spock sacrificed his life in a radiation-filled chamber to allow the ship to escape (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

The resulting explosion of the Genesis Device within a nebula resulted in the formation of a new planet and also allowed the resurrection (through means still not fully understood) of Captain Spock. Defying orders from Starfleet Command, Admiral Kirk stole the still-damaged USS Enterprise and took it to the Genesis Planet to rescue Spock. At Genesis the ship was attacked by a Klingon Bird of Prey commanded by Kruge. Kirk set the Enterprise's self-destruct mechanism to kill Kruge's boarding party. Subsequently Kirk and his crew were able to rescue Spock, kill Kruge and commandeer Kruge's ship to escape to Vulcan (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). At the time of its destruction the Enterprise was forty years old, making it the longest-serving starship to bear the name.

The USS Enterprise undergoing its refit in Earth orbit, 2271-73.

Ship Overview
The Enterprise was one of (as of 2265) twelve Constitution-class starships built by the United Federation of Planets. It was the most advanced ship in the fleet at the time of its launch in 2245, noted for maintaining an excellent balance between speed, defensive capabilities and the comforts essential to keep the crew in good spirits for months or even years between stops at Starbases. The ship had sophisticated scientific and medical research facilities, as well as formidable armaments for when defence was necessary.

The Enterprise is 289 metres (948 feet) in length, 127 metres (416.6 feet) in width and 72 metres (236 feet) in height and has a crew of 430. The ship consists of approximately 20 decks, with the main bridge making up Deck 1. The ship has a single photon torpedo launcher and at least six phaser banks for offence, and powerful energy shields for defence. The ship has a cruising speed of Warp 6 and a maximum safe cruising speed of Warp 7. Warp 8 can be endured for brief periods, and Warp 9 for very brief periods at the risk of damage to the ship. The Enterprise's main computer was created by William Daystrom and at the time of launch was considered the most advanced ever built.

The Enterprise engaging in combat operations.

The Enterprise was designed with a forward saucer section, which contained the bulk of the ship's systems, quarters and departments, and an aft engineering section containing the engine room, cargo bays and main shuttlebay. Two warp nacelles are connected to the engineering section and provide the ship's FTL (faster-than-light) capability. The Enterprise had several shuttlecraft for auxilary duties, but most transportation needs were met by a series of transporters which could "beam" people from one location to another. In an emergency situation, the Enterprise's saucer section was designed to detach and operate independently, even undertaking an emergency landing on a planetary surface, although in the event this never proved necessary.

The 11-foot-long original model of the Enterprise, used in the filming of the original series.

Behind the Scenes
The Enterprise was designed by production designer Matt Jefferies, who had a background in aeronautical engineering. Jefferies, working in concert with Roddenberry, came up with the idea that the ship would be built in space and would never itself land. Roddenberry planned to have the crew get around by shuttlecraft but later came up with "beaming" as a way of avoiding expensive new model shots of the shuttle taking off and landing very week. A three-foot design model was built which Roddenberry approved and later kept on his desk, although it was used for some on-screen shots. A much bigger, eleven-foot long model was built for main shooting on the series and was used throughout the series. In 1974 it was donated by Paramount to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC (where it is currently being refurbished).

For Star Trek: The Motion Picture and later films, an all-new model was built from scratch and depicted both the refit version of the original starship and also its successor, the Enterprise NCC-1701-A.