Newport News Engineering Depot - SCE

During the Dominion War, it was realized that the public knew considerably more than was tactically sound regarding the most advanced Starfleet Engineering bases at Utopia Planitia, Vulcan, and Antares. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers needed a secure facility capable of remaining behind the scenes to develop the latest in starship technologies.

With the entrance of the Breen into the war and the introduction of their energy dampening weapons, SCE's point was well made in this regard. It was decided to develop strategically located engineering depots based on spacedock designs with integrated drydock facilities for prototype construction work.

Officials of several of the founding worlds of the Federation expressed interest in hosting these depots. Earth would host one and by the time the war concluded, Newport News Engineering Depot was brought online at the L5 gravitationally stable orbital location in Earth Orbit.

The engineering depots feature two drydock facilities, one each of the major types used by Starfleet; these docks are used for construction/refit of major structural components. The major core of the depot is constructed of twin "mushroom caps" from spacedock designs, one of which is inverted and connected to the other via four pillars. The central structure provides crew quarters, recreation facilities and environmental accessories such as an arboretum and hydroponics facility. The lower hub provides station computer storage and processing, administration facilities, supplies storage and even docking facilities for visiting ships. Finally at the bottom is the depots energy generation core and fuel storage. Owing to the multiple technologies in development at the depot, the generator core provides fusion, warp and even transwarp plasma.