Spacedock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spacedock, in the Star Trek universe, refers to a space station facility capable of docking starships for maintenance. There are several such facilities within the Federation, of varying designs. Some are small, single-starship sized drydock cages, or more specialized starship repair facilities such as McKinley Station. Other larger mushroom-shaped facilities are assigned as starbases and outposts. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
The first mention of a spacedock is in TOS: "The Doomsday Machine."
Very little is known about the "mushroom" spacedocks seen in the Star Trek Movies and TNG episodes. Their dimensions are unknown, as is much of their internal layout. The regular and maximum compliment is unknown. It is also unknown if the spacedock is open to civilians or if it is restricted to Starfleet personnel.
Even more bizarre is the observation that there seem to be very different sizes of this design of spacedock, despite their outward appearance. It is known for instance that some can accommodate a Galaxy-class starship, although the facility seen in the movies seems to have a much smaller size restriction, to Constitution-sized vessels. This is because stock footage of the original Enterprise entering the dock was superimposed with the new, larger Enterprise-D entering the same port.
See also:
