Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, also known as Utopia Planitia Starfleet Yards or Utopia Planitia Shipyards, was a key Starfleet vessel construction and design facility in the 24th century. The facility included several large drafting rooms for starship design and planetary facilities on the surface of Mars, as well as a number of drydocks and space stations in orbit. (TNG: "Booby Trap", "Parallels"; VOY: "Relativity")
The shipyards were attacked and destroyed by rogue synths in 2385, igniting the planet's atmosphere in the process. (ST: "Children of Mars", PIC: "Remembrance")
History[]
The Galaxy Class Starship Development Project, including the majority of ship construction, design work and system model tests, was based out of drafting room 5 in Mars Station at Utopia Planitia. (TNG: "Booby Trap")
Then-Commander Benjamin Sisko was assigned to Utopia Planitia sometime after the Battle of Wolf 359 for three years, where he assisted in the design work and flight tests of the USS Defiant. (DS9: "Emissary", "The Search, Part I")
The USS Voyager also underwent final construction phases at this location. Additionally, while still in drydock, this was the first time Kathryn Janeway visited the ship. (VOY: "Relativity")
In an alternate quantum reality visited by Worf in 2370, the Cardassians were using the Argus Array to spy on several of Starfleet's most important ship yards and design complexes, including the Utopia Planitia surface facilities, along with Starbase 47, Deep Space 5, and the Iadara colony. (TNG: "Parallels")
In an alternate timeline in 2371, the death of Gabriel Bell in 2024 led to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards temporarily being erased from history. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I")
The fleet yards in orbit of Mars were sometimes displayed on the large astrometrics monitor aboard the USS Voyager. (VOY: "The Voyager Conspiracy")
When it seemed possible Voyager would be returning home in early 2377 with the help of a Reginald Barclay of Reginald Barclay, he asked Seven of Nine what she would do when they returned. She said immediately get to work on repairs to Voyager, but Barclay told her there were people at Utopia Planitia to do the repairs – and that she should celebrate. (VOY: "Inside Man")
In 2385, the yards were supported by a number of shuttlecraft and tri-hy stations, including Tri-hy station A19. Operations were coordinated from Central. Living technicians were supported by synthetic labor units like the A500. (PIC: "Maps and Legends")
Kima's mom worked at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards as an anti-grav rigger. On April 5th, 2385, First Contact Day, the planetary defense network was hacked as part of an Attack on Mars by rogue synths, destroying the shipyards. (ST: "Children of Mars", PIC: "Remembrance", "Maps and Legends", PRO: "Ouroboros, Part II")
According to Dave Blass, the Constitution III-class is a result of the destruction of the shipyard, resulting in its spaceframe incorporated reused and recycled components (instead of replicating) from the previous Luna-class, such as the nacelle shield mechanism and computer systems done at the Fleet Yards. [1]
Personnel[]
Ships developed, refit, and/or built at Utopia Planitia[]
- USS Fredrickson (NCC-42111)
- USS Galaxy (NCC-70637)
- USS Yamato (NCC-71807)
- USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)
- USS Odyssey (NCC-71832)
- USS Equinox (NCC-72381)
- USS Defiant (NX-74205)
- USS Voyager (NCC-74656)
- USS Sao Paulo (NCC-75633)
- At least 2 Galaxy-class starships
- At least 2 Saber-class starships
- At least 1 Steamrunner-class starships
- At least 1 Akira-class starship
- At least 2 Magee-class starships
Appendices[]
Background information[]
According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (p. 14), the orbital part of the yards was positioned in synchronous orbit 16,625 kilometers above the Utopia Planitia region on Mars.
According to the dedication plaque for the USS Enterprise-C, which makes an appearance in the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 192, this starship was built at these yards.
According to Ronald D. Moore, the production staff put starship models in Sisko's office to show his involvement with ship design. (AOL chat, 1997) A subplot from "Paradise Lost" which never made it on screen had Benjamin Sisko sending Jake and Joseph to the fleet yards for safekeeping, the location chosen because he still had a lot of friends there.
The exterior view of the yard in "Relativity" was originally not intended to be shown on screen as the script only called for a shot of the Voyager in a drydock on its own. Many of the modelers at Foundation Imaging were fans and took a different view as Adam "Mojo"" Lebowitz explained:
"But when we got the script, we thought, "Well, we're going to build a drydock and we already have a library of other Federation ships, and making a Mars planet wouldn't be that difficult; it really wouldn't be much more expensive to create a scene of dozens of ships being built." So we suggested to the producers, "Hey, why don't we make a big moment out of this shot and show all the Utopia Planitia shipyards?" They said, "OK", so we eagerly went back into the office and created a temporary scene of what we had in mind with this big, big expanse. We used this big image map of the actual Utopia Planitia area of Mars that was recently surveyed by the Global Planetary Surveyor that NASA sent, and we showed it to Dan Curry and Ron Moore and Peter Lauritson and they liked it. Then they said, "While you're at it, why don't you add this scene and add some space stations back there?", and we said, "No problem." And of course the scene wound up turning into 10 times more work than we originally planned for, but we just wanted to do it. We wanted to see that on the air." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 6, p. 50)
Working "on spec", the industry term for "for free", in their own time, Lebowitz was joined by among others Robert Bonchune, Koji Kuramura, Brandon MacDougall, and Lee Stringer in creating the scene. While working on the scene Lebowitz hit upon the idea of what was to become the Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendar series.
In the Enterprise series bible, the orbital Utopia Planitia facility was referred to as one of two main Starfleet bases as of 2151, the other being on Earth. The Martian outpost was also mentioned as a place where Charles Tucker III worked, prior to his assignment aboard Enterprise.
External link[]
- Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works