Excelsior Class - USS Apache, NCC-61491

In the late 2260's Starfleet was beginning to find Federation Space to be too large to transverse by the normal breed of Constitution, Constellation and Miranda class vessels. The options were to either build faster starships or to begin a massive building programme for Starbases. Out of the many ideas put forward by Federation designers, one stood out clearly from the rest.

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 Starfleets finest achievement, 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 Kirk's command. After a year of modifications and redesigns had taken place the final test almost proved to the last as the Excelsior's Transwarp core went critical, being ejected into space at the last moment. The ship was towed back to Spacedock with minimal damage and during the five year refit Excelsior had all traces of the Transwarp project removed. Five years after NX-2000 had been launched, it was officially commissioned and it left space dock. In later year the Excelsior was followed by a long and distinguished line of star ship, including the USS Enterprise B.

The Excelsior Class starship is one of the the most venerable designs to ever come out of the Advanced Starship Design Bureau (ASDB). Excelsior class construction is based at Starfleet’s San Francisco Fleet Yards. The Excelsior class vessel was originally designed as the testbed for the prototype of the TransWarp drive. Although that project was determined to fall well below Starfleet standards, the basic spaceframe design of the Excelsior was deemed highly successful, and became the basis for an entire class of starships, many of which served, and continue to serve, long and distinguished careers.

Most unique of the Excelsior class design features are the modular bridge that may be interchanged for use during different missions, and the fact the primary hull can separate and function as a "life raft" without the secondary hull; requiring a starbase to rejoin the two.

The Excelsior class has continued to serve as the backbone and workhorse of Starfleet since the late 23rd century. This fact alone proves the worth of the craft.