Vesta Class

The Vesta-class is type of Federation Starfleet starship in service from 2380. The class is designated a multi-mission explorer and was test-bed for a number of experimental technologies, including quantum slipstream drive. As of February 2381 there were four vessels in service with the Starfleet assets available to Novus Limes. The Vesta-class starship's have served as a test-bed for a number of new Starfleet technologies, including quantum slipstream drive, technologies which are inteded for integraton witht he rest of the fleet as soon as is physically possible given time restraints.

Systems installed as part of the slipstream drive included a quantum field focus controller at the front of the ship's main deflector, and a chroniton integrator; the latter of which could be used to take sensor readings several seconds into the future when the ship was using its slipstream drive. Other experimental systems aboard the Aventine included a multidimensional wave-function analysis module, and a sympathetic fermion transceiver. Some of the systems being tested were deemed top secret.

In addition to the experimental systems the class is otherwise top of the line, able to achieve maximum warp of nine-point-nine-nine. The class had the same top-of-the-line sensors as the Luna-class. The Vesta-class held a crew of seven-hundred-and-fifty, with an emergency capacity of three-and-a-half-thousand. The class can also hold up to twenty-four-thousand metric tons of cargo. The class' weapons systems included at least two experimental mark XV phaser cannons and a complement of quantum torpedoes. The class was also able to fire transphasic torpedoes

The USS Independence, Command ship of Task Group 21A under the command of Commodore Ron Haythan is a Vesta Class Starship.