Long Range Sensors
| These sensors are a collection of high-power devices, designed to sweep far ahead of the ship's flight path, or the starbase's orbit, to gather navigational and scientific information. | |
|
Some of the most powerful scientific instruments are part of the long-range sensor array. The array consists of several high-power active and passive subspace frequency sensors, which are located behind the deflector dish in the Engineering hull. |
|
| Most of the long-range sensors are active scan subspace devices, which permit information gathering at speeds greatly exceeding that of light. Maximum effective range of this array is approximately five light years in high-resolution mode. Operation in medium-to-low resolution mode yields a usable range of approximately 17 light years (depending on instrument type). At this range, a sensor scan pulse transmitted at Warp 9.9997 would take approximately forty-five minutes to reach its destination and another forty-five minutes for the signal to return. Standard scan protocols permit comprehensive study of approximately one adjacent sector per day at this rate. Within the confines of a solar system, the long-range sensor array is capable or providing nearly instantaneous information. | |
| Primary instruments in the long-range array include: |
Wide-angle active
EM scanner Narrow-angle active EM scanner 2-meter diameter gamma ray telescope Variable frequency EM flux sensor Life form analysis instrument cluster Parametric subspace field stress sensor Gravimetric distortion scanner Passive neutrino imaging scanner Thermal imaging array |