Earth Pre-Federation Database - BBI-103 Class

SHIP NAME	UN REGISTRY		INFO
ESS Charybdis	NAR 52		Early 21st-century space vehicle launched from Earth by NASA on July 23, 2037, under the command of Colonel Stephan Richey. The Charybdis was the thrid manned attempt to travel beyond Earth's solar system. The ship suffered a telemetry failure and its fate was unknown until 2365, when the remains pf the Charybdis were discovered in orbit around a planet in the Theta 116 system. TNG "The Royale" In Greek mythology, Charybdis is one of two sea monsters who lived in a cave near the Messina. The other monster was Scylla, mentioned in (TNG "Samaritan Snare"). Star Trek Encyclopedia II

	History:
	The mission patch for Charybdis was a reuse of the mission patch for the Apollo 17 lunar mission, the last to take men to the moon. The names on the patch are for Commander Eugene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans. The NASA "worm" logo seen on the debris is today no longer in use, having been retired in 1992. Two unused okudagrams released in Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission provide a depiction of the Charybdis and more details of her mission. The ESS Charybdis was classified as an BBI-103 type ship with the gross vehicle mass of 3,500 metric tons. It was listed in the UN Registry as NAR-52. Drive type was block D gas-core fission reaction propulsion system giving the ship a net delta-vee of 7.44*103 NVP. Complete crew complement on the mission was fifteen. Richey was given the middle initial G. The ship was equipped with hibernation systems. The ship's extrasolar survey mission objectives included the survey of deep extra solar environment to distance of 100 AU, interaction of solar magnetic field at heliopause, long-duration crew habitation and USAF electric fields experiment module adaptability study in an interagency co-operation. The BBI-103 was presumably and earlier model of the canonical BBI-993 ship type used in the 22nd century. According to the second okudagram, NASA lost contact with the Charybdis following the apparent failure of the ship's telemetry system on February 7, 2038. The official NASA report read: "Vehicle systems at telemetry cutoff indicated thrust abnormality. Vehicle attained 12* solar escape velocity 2.56 hours earlier than planned. Assumed vehicle was lost with consumables run out, 20% possibility of crew survival with hibernation systems at low usage mode. Follow up mission Jacob resulted in negative track." The second okudagram gives the years of launch and the year the mission was lost as 2087 and 2088 in an apparent typo. Text from the Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference