Starship Navigation: What Are Your Bearings?

[Redshirt214]

I was looking into ship steering commands last night, with traditional compass bearings and what not, and a thought occurred to me about how starships navigate in Star Trek. Firstly, without a "North" as a point of reference to steer from, how do starships go about steering a course? Equally, it would seem to me the current compass degree system would work fine in two dimensions (think "120 degrees; Port!") but would need something added in the Z axis... in aircraft this is done with altitude but how do you calculate that when you are in space where there isn't always a point of reference? The altitude does seem to be called out in Wrath of Khan, so maybe when giving steering commands the reference point is meant to be a point within the ship (so instead of steering towards\away from north and the ground, the ship is steering L-R Up-Down from a point within it's body, like the bow? That's mean the ship's AI must have a rudimentary kinesthetic sense of not just where other bodies are, but itself, and be able to calculate data to that effect for users to make decisions with.)

I'm sure someone knows how Trek deals with this sort of thing, as well as how real spacecraft do, and will provide me with answers about this. It's just a random thought I had...

 

[NCC-73515]

The galactic center is used as the reference, and directions are given as x mark y, like 024 mark 35 for 24 degrees starboard and 35 degrees up

 

[Albertese]

^^^ This

But also, absolute coordinates can be used with X, Y, Z coordinates based on the galactic center. Also, the Federation maintains navigation buoys and uses distant quasars as referents.

Having said all that, some of the writers of the various shows cared less about the details and sometimes you will get something like "923 mark 236" or something that is outside the limits of the degrees of a circle. However, this XXX mark YYY set up has been explicitly explained on screen, so the odd outliers are the mistakes.

--Alex

 

[dupersuper]

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[Henoch]

Is ship orientation ever discussed? Based on visual references seen on-screen, I assume that most intra-galactic space traveling races have adapted to orientate the "top" of their ships "up" to the galactic plane, then rotate "up" to the planetary plane when inside a solar system. "Up" is a 50/50 direction, though, but again, maybe some sort of agreement has been adapted by most space races.

 

[publiusr]

I would think any weak x-Ray jet from the Galaxy center’s Sgr A * would serve as galactic North

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Is ship orientation ever discussed? Based on visual references seen on-screen, I assume that most intra-galactic space traveling races have adapted to orientate the "top" of their ships "up" to the galactic plane, then rotate "up" to the planetary plane when inside a solar system. "Up" is a 50/50 direction, though, but again, maybe some sort of agreement has been adapted by most space races.

I assume there's a Galactic Common Plane for Inter-Galactic travel and for reference that is Virtually defined.

But once you get within a Star System, you accomodate Up/Top with the local North of the local Planet that you're orbitting.

That's why all the vessels look like they're oriented a specific way when flying around a planet.

 

[Redshirt214]

Thank you all for the detailed responses to my question. I must have been vaguely remembering the scene from Datalore, because that was very much the thoughts I had as to how you'd go about navigating the ship using compass points in space. I think the usual writers errors ("451 mark 90210") were what were confounding my thinking on the matter... I sometimes think that the writers guides were never actually read by the writers!

I like the idea of the Galactic center being the universal "north", it seems to me to be the most logical decision to make.

In terms of what orientation ships fly in, I'd say it'd depend on what kind of orbit you were trying for: geosynchronous or geostationary. I imagine that if you were beaming people up and down, you'd want to maintain a geostationary orbit. In which case, I'd say (for sake of the visuals), your ship ought to have it's "belly" pointed at the surface of the planet. For geosynchronous, I'd think maybe the side view we are used to seeing in the shows would be what you'd see. I'd be interested in others thoughts on the matter though.

In terms of deep space ship to ship meetings, I'd say maybe meeting ships bow on, maybe it's meant as a challenge or request to communicate to the other ship? We tend to see tense meetings with enemy ships happen bow to bow in Star Trek... and perhaps that's the intent of the maneuver, to show your intentions to fight to the opponent. After all, someone showing you there "belly" probably doesn't want to fight, and not even aligning their ship with you might also indicate an unwillingness to communicate.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

In which case, I'd say (for sake of the visuals), your ship ought to have it's "belly" pointed at the surface of the planet

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nautical_terms#Relative_on-board_positions

You mean the "Ventral Section" of your StarShip pointed at the surface of the planet.

Please learn the basic Nautical terms that apply to any Vessl (Ship, StarShip, Aircraft, StarFighter).

HINT: Easy way to remember which side is "Port" and which is "StarBoard".
"Port" has the same # of letters as "Left".
So when you look at a orthographic diagram, you'll automatically know which side is "Port", which side is "StarBoard" when people are talking on screen or use "Nautical Terminology".

All use the same basic language.

• Bow, stem, fore: the forward end of a vessel. (ENT: "Fortunate Son")
• Amidships or midship (ENT: "Fight or Flight"; TOS: "Balance of Terror", "Elaan of Troyius")
• Port: the left side of a vessel when facing forward. (ENT: "Breaking the Ice", "Fortunate Son")
• Starboard: the right side of a vessel when facing forward. (ENT: "Breaking the Ice", "Fortunate Son", "The Catwalk")
• Stern, aft: the rear end of a vessel. (ENT: "Fortunate Son", "The Catwalk")

Display graphic, highlighting the dorsal side of a Sovereign-class starship


Display graphic, highlighting the ventral side of a Sovereign-class starship

• Dorsal: the top of a vessel.
  • During Shinzon's attack on the USS Enterprise-E in 2379, the starship's dorsal shielding failed as the result of a focused attack. (Star Trek Nemesis)

• Topside (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")

• Ventral: the bottom of a vessel.
  • The ventral plating team stated they would be finished with their work on Enterprise NX-01 in three days in April 2151. (ENT: "Broken Bow")
  • During Shinzon's attack on the Enterprise-E in 2379, all ventral phasers were fired in a single maneuver. In addition, the starship's ventral shielding failed on deck 29 as the result of a focused attack. (Star Trek Nemesis)

 

[Albertese]

I understand that "ventral" and "dorsal" are actually biological terms like you'd apply to a fish or a whale. I'm not sure if they are used with submarines or not, but I'm pretty sure they aren't used for (at least surface fleet) nautical stuff.

I know that blueprints of the top of an actual ship is called a "plan view" not a "dorsal view."

I like their use for space ships though.

--Alex