Star Trek: 10 Secrets About The USS Protostar You Need To Know
1. NX-t Up
Detailed by Kevin and Dan Hageman, as well as co-producer Ben Hibon, the concept for the USS Protostar gave a lot of weight to the NX designation and by association a great deal of flexibility.
The fact that this would be a prototype starship meant that the creators of Prodigy could stretch their creative muscles and try something new. Indeed, the Protostar is one of a kind in the series and the smallest Federation starship imagined on screen.
This one had to be small enough to be operated by the main cast, so it has a maximum crew capacity of 20. However, the other thought was to make this the "racecar" of the fleet or as termed by the Hagemans, a hummingbird-like vessel which looks fast even when it's standing still. Andrew Probert's drawings for the Enterprise-D shows that this was also a thought right back in the 1980s! As for size, the Protostar is just 139m long which makes it about three quarters as long as the original USS Enterprise but significantly thinner with a lot less decks.
And the registry number? The 76 refers to the approximate year the ship was built while the 884 nods to Aaron J Waltke's birthday, August 8th 1984.