Excelsior Class Battle Cruiser/Explorer

History : The Excelsior Class of Star Ships was the first bold leap away from Zephram Cochrane's original design layout since Starfleet was first formed. The project aimed to beat the Transwarp barrier with as lighter ship as possible, even though by modern technologies standards the ship was overly heavy. The pathfinder vessel, USS Excelsior was one of Starfleet's finest achievements, showing that the ship was practical and extremely quick at standard warp speeds even though it had a relatively low fuel consumption. Preliminary testing of the Transwarp engines however proved to be a complete disaster, the engines stalling, or failing all together due to the extreme stress placed on the design. The problems were first encountered after the Excelsior, NX-2000 was sent to capture the hijacked USS Enterprise under Admiral Kirks command. After a year of modifications and redesigns had taken place the final test almost proved to the last as Excelsior's Transwarp core went critical, being ejected into space at the last moment. The ship was towed back to Space dock with minimal damage and during the five year refit Excelsior had all traces of the Transwarp project removed. 5 years after NX - 2000 had been launched, it was officially commissioned and it left space dock, in later years was followed by a long and distinguished line of star ships, including the USS Enterprise B. It was found some years later that there had been a subspace dynamics problem that was causing a gravimetric imbalance in the Transwarp core, leading to a stalling, or as in the worst case complete overload.

The Transwarp project was a failure without a doubt, however the Excelsior project was a monumental success. In their 70 years of services they have performed with outstanding reliability and excellent economy. Excelsior class ships are still being produced to modern day, although it must be said that the ships have received a number of design changes though time, the most specific being the Enterprise B where the design changed considerably, although it did maintain the distinctive excelsior shape. Starfleet has at the current moment 40 Excelsior class ships in active service and the final ten ships are currently being produced at numerous shipyards around the Federation. The oldest Excelsior class ship, can currently be found in the Smithsonian Institute Starship museum on Mars. Most of the Excelsior class ships were produced at the San Francisco Fleet Yards, now decommissioned. Ships are currently being produced at Earth Station McKinley, Utopia Planitia, the Arteries Shipyards, the Habeshian Shipyards on Trill, Starbase 11, Deep Space Two and the Planet based Okana Shipyards on Bajor. (See Ambassador Class for further details). With a Design as old as the Excelsior's many design changes have been implemented during the years. These design changes have come to be known as the Excelsior Alpha, Beta and Delta. The Excelsior Alpha was the first design of this class of ship. Specifications were as in Star Trek 6. This class was launched alongside the Excelsior Beta Class. The Excelsior Beta design was a modification from the original which incorporated all of the latest technological advances. Overall the ship was slightly larger with an improved warp engine, modified computer systems and warp geometry adjustments. The USS Enterprise-B was the first of the Excelsior Beta class, which was launched in 2293 however the two different designs of ship remained separate for some time due to stock piling of chassis members. The Excelsior Delta design was again a modification incorporating all of the latest technology. These included a modified Galaxy class warp core and improved warp coils, heavier armaments and improved fuel economy. These ships were first brought on line around the year 2364.

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