Constitution class starship

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Constitution class is a Starfleet starship type that began service in the mid-23rd century.

Depiction
In the original television series, ships of this class support multiple exploratory, diplomatic, and — when needed — adversarial missions. The restrained use of their military capabilities reflects Starfleet's primary role as an exploratory agency, and is reflected back in the fleet designation of these ships as heavy cruisers, and not the battlecruiser appellation borne by equivalent Klingon vessels.

Approximately 947 feet long (Total), 417 feet wide overall (Primary Hull), the Constitution class design consists of a saucerlike, eight-deck-thick primary hull, separable from and dorsally connected to a cylindrical secondary hull, from which spring angled pylons supporting the vessel's engines in two cylindrical nacelles, each is 504 feet long, 60 feet in diameter. The pods operate via controlled fusion of matter and antimatter, creating the power neccisary to propel the ship at FTL Faster Than Light speeds. The class is armed for combat, with offensive weaponry, primarily including photon torpedo launchers and phaser banks, of which there are three, Primary, Starboard, and Port. (" The Balance of Terror") The class also posesses defensive shields. The separation of hulls was a rare event in the 23rd century, undertaken in emergencies; led from an auxiliary bridge, the secondary hull and nacelles retain FTL warp capabilities, while the main bridge and primary saucer are relegated to sublight propulsion from aft-mounted impulse engines. ("The Apple" TOS.) This contrasts with the more routine saucer separation of the later Galaxy class, often employed as a combat tactical maneuver, whose secondary hull is commanded from a dedicated 'battle bridge.'

Constitution was the only major ship class seen in the original series. Other Starfleet capital ship types include the Miranda class of the live-action films, and the older design of Bonaventure, seen in the animated episode "The Time Trap".

Though now understood as such, the class was never named Constitution in the original series; Enterprise 's bridge dedication plaque declares her a 'Starship' class vessel. The name debuted in 1975 in Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's Star Fleet Technical Manual. Its subsequent usage in show creator Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the first film cemented its usage in Trek fandom thereafter. (His novel also set K't'inga as the Klingon class name for the film's refinement of the venerated D7 battlecruiser.) The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now" tags the original Enterprise as a Constitution ship, fixing it in canon; a diagram seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country puts Enterprise A in the Constitution class as well.

The Next Generation episode "Relics" puts a Constitution-class vessel in the Starfleet museum.

The novelizations of the second, third, and fourth Star Trek films, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, identified the Enterprise as a "Constellation-class" heavy cruiser. This was disproven with the Next Generation episode "The Battle", in which the USS Stargazer was listed as Constellation-class.

Refit
Star Trek: The Motion Picture showcased the extensive refit Enterprise experienced after her first five-year mission under James Kirk. (The 1987 reference work Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise places the refit in another class: in author Shane Johnson's interviews with one of the film's main designers, Andrew Probert suggested the ship was the first of a new Enterprise class.) However, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott is seen looking over a layout of the Enterprise-A and the title shows it as a "Constitution Class Starship".

Star Fleet Technical Manual
According to Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's 1975 Star Fleet Technical Manual, the ships of the Constitution class are as follows. Season one of the remastered original episodes added USS Defiant; corrections to the others' registries occurred later.


 * NCC-1017 Constellation
 * NCC-1371 Republic
 * NCC-1631 Intrepid
 * NCC-1664 Excalibur
 * NCC-1672 Exeter
 * NCC-1700 Constitution
 * NCC-1701 Enterprise
 * NCC-1702 Farragut
 * NCC-1704 Yorktown
 * NCC-1707 Hood
 * NCC-1709 Lexington
 * NCC-1711 Potemkin
 * NCC-1764 Defiant

These registry numbers do not completely correspond to the numbers in the Technical Manual (The Excalibur, for example, was NCC-1705), but were changed later for undetermined reasons.

Encyclopedia list
The fictional Constitution-class ship list used internally at Paramount has been derived from the list of fan Greg Jein, first published in 1975; it derives ship registries by matching codes from a wall display in Court Martial with known ship names in reverse alphabetical order. Jein's list forms the basis for the list appearing in the Star Trek Encyclopedia.

Although NCC-1710 USS Kongo is listed on a computer readout in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in The Making of Star Trek and the original Tech Manual contains the same registry, the ship isn't listed in the 1999 Encyclopedia—and Jein's 1975 essay proposed NCC-1732. (His original list also offers NCC-1868 Hornet, 1866 Lafayette, 1865 Tashik-Sotra and 1623 Valiant).