DESCRIPTION AND DESIGN HISTORY

USS Equinox NCC-72381, Nova-class ship. Dorsal view. The full-size version of this picture appears later in the article. See it now. USS Equinox was commissioned on stardate 47007.1.

USS Equinox is a Nova-class vessel, and many descriptions in this article are for a standard Nova-class ship but it should be clear from context where only the Equinox is meant. USS Equinox was a relatively small ship at 160 metres, and was designed for short-term planetary and scientific research missions, being unsuitable for deep-space assignments. It has 8 decks (the shuttlebay was two decks down from the bridge), and a crew complement of approximately 80. The ship was equipped with warp and impulse engines, with a top speed of warp 8. Unlike larger class vessels such as USS Voyager (Intrepid-class), the Equinox had only one warp-core (i.e. no spare), and this was located in the centre of the ship, running between decks 5 and 8. In an emergency it could, like Voyager's warp-core, be ejected through a hatch on the underside of the ship. The Nova-class is one of a series of smaller Starfleet vessels that have planetary landing capability. The Waverider AOS (atmospheric operations shuttlecraft) is a particular feature of the Nova-class. The aeroshuttle is mounted in a specially designed port on the underside of the primary hull and it is able to attain one-half impulse speed. The Waverider is Starfleet's most advanced craft. The long-lived Oberth-class (first commissioned 2290) was showing its age by 2365 therefore work began on a successor - the Nova-class, first commissioned in 2368 (before the development of the Intrepid class) and it is closely related in design to the Defiant-class, and was originally developed by Starfleet's Advanced Ship Design Bureau (ASDB) as part of the Defiant Pathfinder project (see drawings below). At that time its configuration was by contrast that of a heavily-armed and swift torpedo gunship for use in the fight against the Borg. However, the design was changed and developed for other features e.g. compactness and maneuverability. As a result the early prototype for the Defiant-class was reclassified as a science vessel. Accordingly four of its torpedo-launchers were removed and replaced with sensor platforms. More sensor pallets were added around the perimeter of the saucer section and in a dome on the underside of the saucer. The ship's scanning capabilities were enhanced further by a secondary navigational deflector at the front of the saucer section. The completed prototype was dubbed USS Nova, and several other ships in the same class were built after close analysis of USS Nova allayed concern over whether the loss of USS Equinox was due to its design. (As per Starfleet tradition, the first ship of its kind provides the name for the class.) The armaments capability of these vessels was now confined to that of minimal phasers and photon torpedoes. Size comparison - USS Equinox alongside the larger USS Voyager.

Drawings of fore, starboard and dorsal views of USS Defiant. USS Defiant features in [Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"]. The "NX" prefix denotes that it is a prototype. More info and specifications are given in Article: Nova-class Variants.