Constellation-class Starship
Type of Federation spacecraft to shich Picard's former command, the
Stargazer, belonged. Similar in overall size to the
Constitution-class ship, the Constellation-class ships were equipped with four
warp nacelles and were thus suited for deep-space exploration and defensive patrol duties.
Ships of this type have included:
- U.S.S. Constellation (NCC-1974)
- U.S.S. Gettysburg (NCC-3890)
- U.S.S. Hathaway (NCC-2594)
- U.S.S. Magellan (NCC-3069)
- U.S.S. Stargazer (NCC-2893)
- U.S.S. Victory(NCC-9754)
The first Constellation-class ship seen, Stargazer was origionally
planned to be a Constitution-class ship, allowing the visual effects staff to make use
of the existing movie Enterprise model. The producers did not make the decision
to build a new model fot the Stargazer until after the episode was filmed with
LeVar Burton calling it a Constitution-class ship. The choice of the name
Constellation was based largely on the fact that it could be dubbed over Geordi's line
since the two words are so similar. One might conjecture that the
U.S.S. Constellation was named in honor of Commodore Matt Decker's ship, destroyed
in "The Doomsday Machine" (TOS).
