EXCELSIOR CLASS VESSEL

Originally designed as a testbed for the transwarp project, the Excelsior is the most advanced and largest ship in the Federation fleet. A battleship, explorer, interceptor, and more—the Excelsior class is designed to take on any mission. It was intended to replace the aging Constitution class.

The Excelsior Class marked the first bold leap away from Zephram Cochrane's original design layout since Starfleet was founded. The pathfinder vessel, USS Excelsior, became one of Starfleet’s finest achievements, demonstrating practicality and exceptional speed at standard warp with low fuel consumption.

Preliminary testing of the transwarp engines, however, proved disastrous. Engines stalled or failed due to extreme stress. The problems surfaced when Excelsior NX-2000 was sent to intercept the hijacked USS Enterprise under Admiral Kirk. After a year of redesigns, the final test nearly ended in catastrophe when the transwarp core went critical and was ejected into space just in time.

The ship was towed back to Spacedock with minimal damage. During a five-year refit, all traces of the transwarp project were removed. Five years after launch, Excelsior was officially commissioned and left Spacedock. Excelsior-class vessels became common, including the USS Enterprise-B.