SHIP U.S.S. VOYAGER:

STARFLEET PROBES

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PAGE CONTENTS TYPES OF PROBE:      Introduction Probe Class Specifications Summary With Drawings Class-1 Probe Class-2 Probe Class-3 Probe      Class-4 Probe Class-5 Probe Class-6 Probe Class-7 Probe Class-8 and Class-9 Probe Microprobe

TYPES OF PROBE

Introduction

• The spacecraft frames are constructed from gamma moulded duranium-titanium and pressure-bonded lufium boronate. In 2371 USS Voyager's crew discover the 247th element, and Torres believes it can be used for probe casings and ultra-thin reactor shielding [#9 Emanations].
• Certain sensor windows are composed of triple-layered transparent aluminum. SHOW NOTE: TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM
  TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM: This is an optically clear, structurally rigid material used for construction in the 23rd century. Transparent aluminum was first devised in 1986 by Dr Nichols, a scientist at Plexicorp in San Francisco in the United States of America. Nichols apparently had some assistance from the time-travelling Starfleet personnel in making the invention. The Starfleet personnel concerned were the legendary Montgomery Scott accompanied by the equally famous Dr Leonard McCoy. [Star Trek: The Voyage Home].HIDE NOTE
  
  Sensors not utilising the windows are affixed through various methods, from surface blending with the full material to embedding the active detectors within the hull itself.
• The onboard equipment comprises a standard suite of instruments to detect and analyse all normal EM and subspace bands, organic and inorganic chemical compounds, atmospheric constituents, and mechanical force properties.

While all nine probe classes are capable of at least surviving a powered atmospheric entry, three are designed to function for extended periods of aerial maneuvering and soft landing. Many probes include varying degress of telerobotic operation capabilities to permit real-time control and piloting of the probe. This means that an officer aboard USS Voyager, such as the ops manager (Kim) or the security/tactical officer (Tuvok) from their respective stations on the bridge, can control the probe remotely while exploring what might otherwise be a dangerously hostile or otherwise inaccessible environment. The remote control feature comes in particularly useful when it enables Voyager in early 2375 to remotely steer its only multispatial probe (more information on this below) into a gas giant to try and elude a Malon vessel intent on stealing it [#97 Extreme Risk].

In 2372 USS Voyager receives a Federation signal from a beacon, and Paris suggests that Starfleet sent a probe into the Delta Quadrant to search for them [#27 Maneuvers]. This would have to have been a probe constructed for extremely long-range reconnaisance and capable of high-warp speed, probably a class-8 or class-9 (see below), but it turns out that the signal is a decoy designed to lure USS Voyager into a Kazon-Nistrim ambush.

Probe class specifications

SUMMARY WITH DRAWINGS

SHOW NOTE: DEFINITION OF 'DELTA-V'

delta-v is a unit of measure, indicating change in velocity, sometimes measured in metres per second² HIDE NOTE

Red alert: The picture below is 117Kb.

CLASS-1 PROBE

The class-1 probe, which is a sublight unit, carries a very wide range of scientific sensing equipment, comprising a suite of RF, subspace, chemical, biological, and astrophysical sensors. These are coupled to a high-speed, 24.3-kiloquad isolinear preprocessing core for data analysis and a multichannel subspace telemetry system for transmitting data and receiving tasking instructions.

In common with the class-2, class-3 and class-4 probes, propulsion is provided by a vectored deuterium microfusion thruster and is able to run on cryogenic fuels stored at the station or aboard attached Starfleet vessels. Attitude and translational control are accomplished through the thruster nozzle, which can be exhausted in 360° in the X-Y plane, 180° in the Y-Z plane (-Z), and 180° in the X-Z plane (-Z). This essentially allows for all +Z thrusting with total radial thrust control. Reaction control at the +Z end of the probe is handled by four cold-gas nitrogen thrusters near the sensor head connector. The effective range of the class-1 is 3.2 x 107 kilometres, and the total delta-v is 0.6c. The latter statistics, provided by DS9 Tech, must be upgrade statistics as those published years earlier in 1991 and published for the Galaxy-class starship, specifically the Enterprise-D, and shown on the Summary With Drawings above, give lower figures.

The operational philosophy is to get the device on-site as quickly as possible, take full readings, and transmit telemetry. The effective transceiver power is rated at 15.7 megawatts over 18,650 channels. Again, those must be upgrade statistics, as those given for the class-1 probe at the time when the Galaxy-class had just come into service i.e. from circa 2363, are lower (see Summary With Drawings).

Full control is available for deployment programming, including data storage and probe return for later downloading, in situations where subspace silence is required. The class-1 casing is available with low-observability coatings and hull materials, though the standard model is a duranium and tritanium composite.

A class-1 probe was used by Starfleet's flagship, the Galaxy-class starship USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, to investigate the 'hole in space' created by Nagilum in the Alpha Quadrant in 2365 [TNG: Where Silence Has Lease], and a year later the Enterprise-D launched another class-1 probe into the temporal rift discovered near the Alpha Quadrant's Archer IV [TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise]. The class-1 probe is not shown/mentioned on tv as being launched by USS Voyager; the speed, range and effective transceiver power of any class-1 probe carried by USS Voyager would be the upgrade figures given above and not those shown on Summary With Drawings.

CLASS-2 PROBE

CLASS-3 PROBE

CLASS-4 PROBE

After the class-4 and class-5 upgrades were combined into a single new class-5-type hull casing, the specification for the class-4 probe has been altered to study at high-impulse speed capability of subspace anomalies and other phenomena not usually encountered in normal space. Effective range is 7.23 x 107 and total delta-v is 0.98c. The power plant remains a vectored microfusion engine with a near-warp sustainer coil. Sensors include full subspace EM and seismicity detectors, zero-point vacuum energy detector, and protected temporal distortion sensors. Onboard data preprocessing is handled by a 15.9-kiloquad isolinear computer, and telemetry is transmitted over a ruggedized STA (subspace transceiver assembly; STA Note (pop-up)) radiating 20.6 megawatts over 14,776 channels.

the space-dwelling alien creature about to bump USS Voyager [Elogium]

A class-4 probe was sent into a subspace disruption near station Deep Space 9, in 2369, on stardate 46853, but it was later learned this subspace disruption was a product of the imagination of one of the station personnel (named Jadzia Dax) generated by aliens from the Gamma Quadrant [DS9: If Wishes Were Horses]. In late 2371, USS Voyager sends a class-4 probe sent into the swarm of spaceborne lifeforms to try and distract the largest alien creature which is intent on drive Voyager away, but the creature sees the probe's launch as hostile and bumps the ship. It turns out that the creature believes Voyager is its rival to mate with the smaller creatures. [#18 Elogium]

CLASS-5 PROBE

telemetry from the probe enables Chakotay and Paris to disguise themselves as Takarians in this crowd of Takarians assembled in the temple precinct [False Profits]

In 2373, USS Voyager detects a modulated energy discharge that appears to be consistent with the recent use of a replicator on a pre-industrialised planet. They decide to investigate. Janeway orders: "Launch a high-resolution reconnaissance probe to gather information about the local population's dress and appearance." NOTE: This is noted in Encyclopaedia as being a class-5 probe. Later, on the planet, Neelix, disguised as the Ferengi Grand Proxy, pretends to the two rulers who are the two Ferengi called Kol and Arridor that U.S.S. Voyager stabilised the Barzan wormhole, and sent a probe through it informing the Ferengi authorities of their "impressive operation", although the class of probe is not mentioned (one would not expect it to be) [#47 False Profits].

After the inauguration of the astrometrics lab in 2374, [#76 and #77 Year of Hell], it does not seem necessary for Voyager to launch probes to gather data about a planet's population, as such information can be gathered by the astrometrics lab sensors which have been enhanced with Borg-technology. In 2375, while searching for Seven who has allowed herself to be captured by the Borg, U.S.S. Voyager launches a class-5 probe [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier].

The class-4 and class-5 upgrades are combined into a single new class-5-type hull casing. The class-5 probe retains its warp sustainer and its role as a stealthy reconnaissance spacecraft. It is fitted for the latter role by low-observability hull coatings and hull materials. The probe is designed for relatively convenient modification for tactical applications, with the addition of a custom-sensor counter-measure package comprising anti-capture and EM-tamper detector subroutines which will cause immediate detonation of on-board M/A (matter/antimatter) fuel supplies if an unauthorised attempt is made to access the information stored within. Encrypted telemetry is triggered only within secured territory, at 3.4 megawatts over 5,482 channels. The class-4 probes' effective range is 8.42 x 1 010 and total delta-v is warp 2.6. The dual-mode matter-antimatter (M/A) power plant has been replaced by a direct M/A coil reactor, bypassing the need for an intermediate EPS power transfer conduit (PTC). Sensors include full passive signal intelligence pallet, autonomous deep-sky astrophysical detectors, and subspace wave analysis suite. Data-gathering and recording capabilities are handled by a 54.7-kiloquad isolinear computer.

For information about the class-5 probe modified in [#132 Blink Of An Eye], beam to Page 3.

CLASS-6 PROBE

CLASS-7 PROBE

CLASS-8 AND CLASS-9 PROBES

Although barely large enough to hold a person, a class-8 probe was modified to carry a single passenger when, in the Alpha Quadrant, Special Federation Envoy K'Ehleyr was launched in the coffinlike missile for emergency transport to the Enterprise-D in 2365 [TNG: The Emissary].

The class-8 and class-9 warp probes and their quantum torpedo casing variants continue within their existing mission capabilities as regards range and total velocities in the one hundred to nine hundred light-year and warp 9+ flight regime. Experimental versions of class-8a and class-9a probes have undergone trials by Starfleet and have been declared provisionally operational. These are based on the quantum torpedo casing and take advantage of a higher delta-v sustainer engine rating. All four types can be assembled from existing components within a fifteen-minute window, and all are multimission-capable.

The class-8 and class-9 probes are not shown/mentioned on tv as being launched by USS Voyager.

MICROPROBE

Early in 2371, on stardate 48546, in [#6 The Cloud], USS Voyager launches a class-4 microprobe as a distraction for the cloud-like lifeform so that they can manuever the ship into the breach.

Not long afterwards, that same year, on stardate 48579, in [#7 Eye Of The Needle], Kim and the Voyager crew discover a micro-wormhole which is only 30 centimetres in diameter. SHOW NOTE: DEFINITION  OF 'MICRO-WORMHOLE'

telemetry from the microprobe, as seen on Voyager's bridge's main viewscreen [Eye Of The Needle]

They launch a microprobe, class number not given on tv, into the wormhole but it becomes trapped in gravitational eddies within the wormhole. Illustrated dialogue extract from [#7 Eye Of The Needle] They discover that, while one terminus of the wormhole is in the Delta Quadrant, the other is situated across the galaxy in Sector 1384 of the Alpha Quadrant. The crew use the microprobe as a communications relay to the Romulan science vessel Talvath which is in that Sector, after Kim and Torres modify Voyager's subspace communication band to accept the probe as a booster and then reconfiguring the signal generator so that it is compatible with the probe's long-range sensors. They know gravitational eddies will crush the probe within 72 hours.

Initially the contact is audio-only but the Romulan scientist Telek R'Mor aboard the Talvath reconfigures the protocols of his signal amplifier to penetrate the radiation stream of the wormhole and establishes a visual link. Then Torres reconfigures the matter transmission rate of one of Voyager's transporters so that the phase amplitude of the visual link with the Romulan ship meets transporter protocols and she is thus able to piggy-back a transporter beam onto the visual beam, and Telek R'Mor is successfully beamed aboard Voyager. Unfortunately this particular wormhole also traverses a temporal distance of 20 years, the Alpha Quadrant terminus being in the year 2351, and therefore the crew does not transport back to the Alpha Quadrant as it would jeopardise the timeline.

audio-visual link - Telek R'Mor as seen on Voyager's bridge's main viewscreen [Eye Of The Needle]

beaming an object proves successful as a Voyager test cylinder is received by Telek R'Mor in the Alpha Quadrant [Eye Of The Needle]

Telek R'Mor beams aboard USS Voyager [Eye Of The Needle]

For information about Starfleet test cylinders, see SHIP USS VOYAGER: Equipment: Test Cylinder.