Himalaya Class

The development of the USS Himalaya was one effort to replace the venerable Ambassador class. New materials and new assembly methods, as they would be later utilized for the Nebula and Galaxy classes too, were tested with this ship. Since the Himalaya was intended to operate in unexplored space far beyond the Federation borders, it included large quarters for families, a novelty aboard cruiser-type ships. In addition, one of the first fully operational holodecks was installed, but it was restricted with regard to its processing speed, not yet creating perfect illusions in case of fast motion within the four walls. On all ships of the class, it has been replaced by a state-of-the-art holodeck in the meantime.

The limited performance of the warp drive, whose nacelles were taken from the Ambassador class without significant changes, was the most severe drawback of the four ships of the first series. The maximum speed of Warp 9.0 was sufficient and was one of the fastest of all Starfleet classes, but the stress on the warp coils soon required a general limit of the sustainable speed to Warp 7. This was the reason to equip the second series with a more durable propulsion system, including newly developed nacelles. The first four starships will prospectively be refitted with a new warp system in the near future.

 

Gallery

 

Datasheet

 

Credits

Thanks to Jay Hagen for his 3D model and to Jason Colbert for his drawing.

 

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