The Yard 39 Project is an ongoing Starfleet Corps of Engineers project to bring starships from the mid-23rd century up to the standards of the early 25th century.
Overview[]
Yard 39 was a Federation construction yard thought lost to a supernova in 2259. Rediscovered in 2410 by a pair of Starfleet officers at Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, they found almost 100 under-construction starships still intact. The project was undertaken to bring the designs, dating back to the mid-2250s, specifically the 2256-2257 Federation-Klingon War, up to modern standards and to design modernized versions of the rediscovered vessels.
The first vessel to emerge from the Yard 39 Project was the Europa-class Heavy Battlecruiser, derived from the Nimitz-class Heavy Battlecruiser, a class which, itself, was upgraded to be a Fleet-level starship, as well as being made available to captains as a design variation for their Europa-class starships.