Nova class starship

USS Equinox starship.jpg The Nova class starship is a class of starship within the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. The first time this class of starship appeared was in the episode entitled "Equinox" in the form of the USS Equinox.

The Nova class was designed by Star Trek: Voyager illustrator Rick Sternbach, based on an early design for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ' s USS Defiant from a year earlier.

Sternbach's Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, published in 1991, speculated that the long-term successor to the Galaxy class starships would be given the name "Nova". The on-screen Nova does not fulfil this narrative role.

Description
Ships of this class are small science vessels. The Nova has an angular trowel-shaped saucer section, an engineering hull, and two warp nacelles with triangularly based shapes attached to the engineering hull by pylons running aft. At the prow of the saucer is the auxiliary navigational deflector, lifeboats, sensor platforms, phaser banks/arrays, and photon torpedo launchers. The ship's ventral phaser arrays, a Waverider shuttle, additional sensors, and more lifeboats occupy the ventral saucer. The engineering hull houses the main deflector dish, shield emitters, two shuttlebays, and the warp core. The shield charging cycle takes 45 seconds. Unlike most starships, which have unsupported cruise durations of a year or more, the Nova class is designed for short-range cruises of only a few months.

The Nova class is one of the first starships built with an Emergency Medical Hologram system.

Nova-class Starships Known to Exist

 * USS Equinox (NCC-72381) : The starship Equinox was built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, Mars and commissioned on stardate 47007.1. The Equinox was commanded by Captain Rudolph Ransom when it was transported to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker in 2371. While returning to the Alpha Quadrant, the ship suffered heavy damage and casualties.  In 2375, the surviving crew encountered nucleogenic antimatter life-forms from a different spatial realm, which the Equinox crew used for fuel to return to Earth.  After meeting the USS Voyager's crew, the Equinox is destroyed by a warp core breach caused by the lifeforms.  Only five crew members survive.
 * USS Rhode Island (NCC-72701) : Named for the state of Rhode Island, the starship Rhode Island is commanded by Captain Harry Kim in an alternate universe in 2404 and defended Admiral Janeway's shuttlecraft SC-4 when she went back in time. The Rhode Island, unlike other Nova's, had a complete trowel-saucer; other Nova's had a small "gap" at the front. See USS Rhode Island for other ships of the same name.