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ISCA-FC · Orbital Yards · Assembly Schematic

Meridian-Class — In the Cradle

You do not build a deep explorer on a planet. A Meridian-class hull is hundreds of metres of pressure body and structural collar, mated section by section in an orbital cradle, and it never makes planetfall in its whole working life — it puts people and cargo down by lander and stays in the dark where it was born. This is the yard view, drawn to scale: the cradle, the work tugs, a docked shuttle for size. The ship dwarfs everything that built her. That is the point of her.

ISCA-FC · ORBITAL CONSTRUCTION YARDS
DRAWING YD-MER / SHT 1 · CRADLE GENERAL ARRANGEMENT · MERIDIAN CLASS
CLASSIFICATION · ISCA-FC RESTRICTED
SCALE 1:1000 · METRIC · ORBITAL · REV A
LOW ORBIT · CONSTRUCTION ALTITUDE ASSEMBLY CRADLE · STRUCTURAL TRUSS SECTION 5 · IN FRAME SECTION 4 · ENGINEERING SECTIONS 3 – 2 · HABITATION (≈240) SECTION 1 · FWD HOLD FOLD ARRAY ISV MERIDIAN-CLASS · EX-HULL · UNDER CONSTRUCTION [A] WORK TUGS — moving collars and plate into the cradle [B] SHUTTLE + EVA · SCALE 0 250 m 500 m ASSEMBLED IN ORBIT — THE HULL NEVER FEELS GRAVITY UNTIL IT MAKES ITS OWN → BOW STERN ←
CLASS
TYPEDEEP EXPLORER
CLASSMERIDIAN
SECTIONS5 · COLLARED
PLANETFALLNEVER
SCALE
ORDERHUNDREDS OF M
COMPLEMENT≈240
DRAWING1:1000
HABITATSTACKED DECKS
BUILD
SITEORBITAL CRADLE
METHODSECTION-MATED
JOINSTRUCTURAL COLLAR
REFITSECTION-STRIKE
YARD
OPERATORISCA-FC
FIRST OF CLASSEX-01
ENVLOW ORBIT
SHEETYD-MER / 1
YARD · SUBJECT
MERIDIAN-CLASS DEEP EXPLORER · ORBITAL ASSEMBLY
DRAWING
YD-MER / 1
REV
A
SCALE
1:1000
YARD
ISCA-FC

The ship a dozen novels call massive is massive because of this drawing: she is grown in the dark, out of sections each the size of a building, by tugs that look like sparks against her. When the Endurance comes home through the Span five years overdue, this is the scale of the thing limping back into known space — and the scale of what it costs to keep her flying anyway.