Orbital inspection pod
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
| Orbital inspection pod | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Affiliation: | Earth Starfleet |
| Type: | Auxiliary craft |
| Active: | 22nd century |
| Crew complement: | 2 |
| Speed: | Sub-impulse |
 | |
 | |
An orbital inspection pod was a type of shuttlepod used by the Earth Starfleet in the 22nd century.
Prior to the first exterior inspection of the nearly complete prototype NX class starship Enterprise in 2151, Commander Charles Tucker III called Captain Jonathan Archer at home to inform him that all three inspection pods were getting their weekly overhaul that night and would not be available for their use until noon the following day. (ENT: "Shockwave")
The next day, while Enterprise was undergoing final preparations for departure of one of Starfleet's drydock facilities, in orbit of the planet Earth, the inspection pod accidentally scratched the paint on Enterprise's hull, after Tucker got distracted. When a member of Starfleet contacted the inspection pod, Commander Tucker referred to the pod as Orbital 6. (ENT: "Broken Bow")
Throughout the first two years of Enterprise's ten-year mission, at least one such pod was carried aboard the starship. Unlike the craft's shuttlepods, the inspection pod was stored in a cargo bay, not in one of the vessel's shuttlebays. (ENT: "Shuttlepod One")
In 2152, Captain Archer and Commander Tucker inspected damage to Enterprise's primary hull in an inspection pod. The ship had been damaged in a Romulan minefield approximately four days before the officers' inspection. As Enterprise would take a decade to reach Jupiter Station, Captain Archer decided to appeal to others for assistance. He contacted Ensign Hoshi Sato and told her to begin work on a general distress call. (ENT: "Dead Stop")
A year later, Captain Archer and Admiral Maxwell Forrest used an inspection pod to survey the starship Columbia, the second NX-class spacecraft to be built. Uncompleted, the Columbia was docked in another of Earth's orbital drydock facilities. While Archer piloted the pod, he spoke to Admiral Forrest about preparing Enterprise for the starship's lengthy search for the Xindi superweapon in the Delphic Expanse. (ENT: "The Expanse")
Background
The name used here to describe this craft is derived from the script for "Broken Bow". In the ENT Season 1 DVD, the text commentary on "Broken Bow" reveals that the inspection pod's cockpit was a modification of the Phoenix's cockpit, from Star Trek: First Contact.
Appearances
- ENT:
- "Broken Bow"
- "Shuttlepod One"
- "Dead Stop"
- "The Expanse"
- "Damage"
- "Borderland"
