USS Aurora

Vessel Name:	USS Aurora
Registry:	NCC-72321
Starship Class:	Nova-class
Starship Type:	Light Research Cruiser
Status:	Active
Purpose:	Short-term research missions
Constructed:	Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards
Commissioned:	September 20th, 2370
Dedication:	Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.” -Robert A. Heinlein
Dimensions:	Length: 160 m Height: 35 m Width: 43 m
Mass:	110,000 metric tons
Decks:	8
Standard Crew Complement	Officers: 15 Enlisted: 65
Cruising Speed	Warp Factor 6.0
Flank Speed	Warp Factor 7.0
Burst Speed	Warp Factor 8.0 (Sustainable for 1 hour)
Armaments:	(11x) Type-X Phaser Strip Array (3x) Mk-95 Photon Torpedo Tubes
Defences:	FSQ Primary Force Field / Deflector Control Systems Standard Duranium / Tritanium Single hull. Standard level Structural Integrity Field
Auxiliary Craft	(2x) Type-8 Shuttlecraft USS Hopkins USS Koch (2x) Type-9 Shuttlecraft USS Banting USS Fleming (2x) Workbee Hopit Peef

The USS Aurora (NCC-72321) was a Federation Nova-class starship assigned to Starbase 39-Sierra in the Alpha Centauri Sector Block. Designated as a Light Research Cruiser, the ship and her crew were responsible for short-term scientific assignments and planetary surveying in the Alpha Centauri Sector Block, mainly along the Romulan Neutral Zone. In 2381, during Theurgy's war against the parasites, she was commanded by Captain Rebecca Anders.

History

Construction, Launch and Commissioning

As one of the first ships of the Nova-class, closely following the prototype USS Nova (NX-72230) herself, the ‘keel’ of the USS Aurora was laid down at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on February 5th, 2368 alongside those of her sister ships; the USS Anticipation (NCC-72319) and the USS Asimov (NCC-72320). Only two months into the assembly of the primary hull however, a problem presented itself with one of the pre-fabricated modules of the three sister ships. During the construction process of the USS Nova these modules had been built by hand but, for the mass production of the Nova-class ships, the design was copied into pre-fabricated modules that could easily be joined together in the orbital shipyards. One of these modules came with a very miniscule miscalculation that misaligned the secondary deflector on Deck 3 with the primary deflector on Deck 6 by a fraction of an inch. If left unaddressed, this misalignment had the potential to result in a resonance that could negatively impact the performance of the advanced sensor systems which flanked the secondary deflector on both sides. This forced Utopia Planitia to recalculate the design of the entire module and, as they subsequently fabricated entirely new ones, the construction of the three sister ships incurred a delay of several months.

The next significant delay would present itself just two years later, in mid-2370, when the USS Aurora was just mere months away from completion. At this point in time, Utopia Planitia was preparing the three sister ships for launch and had already scheduled extensive test flights, but the disappearance of the USS Equinox (NCC-72381) during a routine scientific survey near the Badlands put a sudden and unexpected stop to this. The disappearance of the USS Equinox, coupled with the fact that the Nova-class was a new class, led to concern over the design and Starfleet’s Advanced Starship Design Bureau ordered further construction to be halted following a detailed analysis of the USS Nova and all other Nova-class ships. It was only after the analysis revealed no discernible design flaws when Utopia Planitia was allowed to resume construction of the three Nova-class ships, but by then the project had once again suffered a delay of several weeks.