Constellation-Class Starships

[SicOne]

I always figured the Constellation-class were easier and cheaper to build than the TMP era Enterprise-class cruisers while using many of the same parts. The Constellations look to be of simpler construction and less elaborate design--hell, it's really just a beefed up saucer section with the stuff normally in the support hull of a Connie shoehorned into the Constellation's main section. The four nacelles are not exact replicas of a Connie's, but serve to provide similar performance in a quad arrangement.

The Enterprise and Constitution classes were the top-of-the-line while the Constellations could have been more workhorses to perform many of the same functions while more of them could be built for less investment per unit.

The variants of the Constellations we saw could have been science survey specific variants bulging with extra sensor systems. Meanwhile there could well have been variants that were cleaner and more streamlined looking akin to the familiar Constitution-class.

Well you had at least three classes running around with the same basic parts: Constitution (refit), Miranda, and Soyuz.

It's entirely possible that the Constellation was a "budget" ship. A ship meant to save on retooling and updating Starbases and shipyards by using Off the shelf parts. With the known galaxy in a state of political flux, it might have been seen as a "stop gap" ship that wasn't meant to replace the frontline ships like the Constitution completely but allow the fleet to draw down the older spaceframes till a more suitable class (Excelsior) could be put in the field.

I get the feeling from ST II (and I can't explain why) that around that time deep-range exploration wasn't at the top of Starfleet's list at the moment.

I vaguely remember a few lines from a Trek novelization (from one of the movies, I think) where a new Constellation-class USS Magellan had just left on a multi-year mission and Kirk or Sulu had sent subspace congratulations to the captain, a friend of theirs.

So I rather thought of the Constellation as a gap-filler between the Miranda and Constitution-refit designs and the Excelsior-class, using mostly Con-refit materials and design but also incorporating newer items (i.e. the sensor bulges and domes that appeared on the Constell were likely intended for the Excelsior, but reduced and streamlined to be more asthetically pleasing in the latter design after thorough testing on the Constells).

The quad-nacelle arrangement I thought of as all four working together to provide longer duration cruise times, though not necessarily faster warp speeds, rather than one pair working/one pair back-up. Hence the slightly different nacelle design, to accomodate for quad operation.

I also pictured the Constellation-class as being designed for mission durations past five years, such as ten or twelve, going farther out to accomodate the grown of the Federation and the expansion of explored space. In the twenty-plus year gap between the time of TOS and the Trek movies, I would imagine the Federation and explored space has greatly expanded, requiring more than five years for a mission. No point going out to the limits of known space than having to return to change out the crew after their five years.

And if I remember correctly (I'm sure one of you will share with us the actual statistic involved), the Constellation primary hull has about 3x the volume of a Constitution-refit-class primary hull. If indeed the Constell was designed for missions greater in duration than five years, then they would need plenty of space for consumables, shuttles, replacement parts, other apparatus as there would be few starbases where the Constells were heading.

We don't know if there were many Constellations built or only a few; I can't imagine there were too many built by the time the events of ST6 inspired an intelligent drawdown of Starfleet, but the design was decent enough that examples survived to still be in-service during the time of TNG.

An aside...what was the Constell serving in the sensor net fleet in TNG's "Redemption"? Is there a listing of the ships that served in Picard's task force?

 

[Timo]

I vaguely remember a few lines from a Trek novelization (from one of the movies, I think) where a new Constellation-class USS Magellan had just left on a multi-year mission and Kirk or Sulu had sent subspace congratulations to the captain, a friend of theirs.

That was Galaxy class - Voyda McIntyre's novelizations of ST2 and IIRC also ST3 made reference to this ship type in order to name-drop that skipper friend, who happened to be a character from McIntyre's earlier novel The Entropy Effect.

It'd be a bit surprising if Starfleet had ships capable of flying to other galaxies in a matter of mere years in the 2280s, when such a flight took centuries even with engines augmented by advanced aliens in "By Any Other Name", a few decades earlier. Granted that the Magellanic Clouds are relatively close, but I'd still expect a journey taking a decade or so at least.

An aside...what was the Constell serving in the sensor net fleet in TNG's "Redemption"? Is there a listing of the ships that served in Picard's task force?

The single shot of her was stock footage of the Hathaway, so we might claim it was in fact that ship that served in Picard's blockade fleet. We never saw any registry or name, though, not even on Okudagram lists, so we're free to speculate. The Okudagram we have of the 26-strong fleet is incomplete, only listing seventeen ships. None of these were given a class identity - only names and regisries were given. OTOH, none had four-digit registries, so probably none of them was the Constellation we saw.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

Actually, IIRC, there's a shot of a Constellation class ship from the rear, as the Enterprise is leading the blockade fleet towards the border. I couldn't seem to find the stock Hathaway footage in TrekCore's gallery, so does that mean it was actually used or are both our memories just foggy?

Memory Alpha states that the model used was indeed the Hathaway but that it was presumably intended to be a different ship since the Hathaway's name and registry do not appear on the list of ships in the task force.

 

[Timo]

The Constellation class ship could be one of the seven that were not mentioned on that graphic - so Hathaway is one possibility. But I thought there were no new Starfleet starship shots at all in "Redemption", save for the stuff done on the Sutherland: even the Excalibur shots were stock from "Yesterday's Enterprise".

The shot of the four starships departing could well have been composed of a reversed "Peak Performance" rear shot, I think.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkozoriz1]

Perhaps the ships not shown on the graphic were held in reserve in case the grid need to be expanded, a sensor contact needed to be investigated, a ship replaced, etc.

 

[Unicron]

I'm inclined to agree with you about the Sutherland being the only new footage, more or less, Timo. I think also there was some of the stock footage reused from "Peak Performance" of the Enterprise and Hathaway together, but I'd probably have to research to figure out which ep it was.