Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards , also known as Utopia Planitia Starfleet Yards or Utopia Planitia Shipyards , was a key Starfleet vessel construction and design facility in the 24th century . The facility included a number of drydock s and space station s , as well as several large drafting rooms for starship design and planetary facilities on the surface of Mars . ( ; ) History . The " Galaxy " Class Starship Development Project , including the majority of ship construction , design work and system model tests , was based out of drafting room 5 in Mars Station at Utopia Planitia . ( ) Then - Commander Benjamin Sisko was assigned to Utopia Planitia sometime after the Battle of Wolf 359 for three years , where he assisted in the design work and flight tests of the . ( ) The also underwent final construction phases at this location . Additionally , while still in drydock , this was the first time Kathryn Janeway visited the ship . ( ) " In an alternate quantum reality visited by Worf in 2370 , the Cardassian s were using the Argus Array to spy on several of Starfleet ' s most important ship yards and design complexes , including the Utopia Planitia surface facilities , along with Starbase 47 , Deep Space 5 and the Iadara colony . " ( ) " In an alternate timeline in 2371 , the death of Gabriel Bell in 2024 led to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards temporarily being erased from history . " ( ) The fleet yards in orbit of Mars were sometimes displayed on the large astrometrics monitor aboard the . ( ) When it seemed possible " Voyager " would be returning home in early 2377 with the help of a Barclay hologram , he asked Seven of Nine what she would do when they returned . She said immediately get to work on repairs to " Voyager " , but Barclay told her there were people at Utopia Planitia to do the repairs - and that she should celebrate . ( ) Appendices . Background information . According to " " ( p . 14 ) , the orbital part of the yards was positioned in synchronous orbit 16 , 625 kilometers above the Utopia Planitia region on Mars . According to the dedication plaque for the , which makes an appearance in the , this starship was built at these yards . According to Ronald D . Moore , the production staff put starship models in Sisko ' s office to show his involvement with ship design . A subplot from which never made it on screen had Benjamin Sisko sending Jake and Joseph to the fleet yards for safekeeping , the location chosen because he still had a lot of friends there . The exterior view of the yard in " Relativity " was originally not intended to be shown on screen as the script only called for a shot of the " Voyager " in a drydock on its own . Many of the modelers at Foundation Imaging were fans and took a different view as Adam " Mojo " " Lebowitz explained : " But when we got the script , we thought , " " Well , we ' re going to build a drydock and we already have a library of other Federation ships , and making a Mars planet wouldn ' t be that difficult ; it really wouldn ' t be much more expensive to create a scene of dozens of ships being built . " " So we suggested to the producers , " " Hey , why don ' t we make a big moment out of this shot and show all the Utopia Planitia shipyards ? " " They said , " " OK " " , so we eagerly went back into the office and created a temporary scene of what we had in mind with this big , big expanse . We used this big image map of the actual Utopia Planitia area of Mars that was recently surveyed by the Global Planetary Surveyor that NASA sent , and we showed it to Dan Curry and Ron Moore and Peter Lauritson and they liked it . Then they said , " " While you ' re at it , why don ' t you add this scene and add some space stations back there ? " " , and we said , " " No problem . " " And of course the scene wound up turning into 10 times more work than we originally planned for , but we just wanted to do it . We wanted to see that on the air . " ( ) Working " on spec " , the industry term for " for free " , in their own time , Lebowitz was joined by amongst others Robert Bonchune , Koji Kuramura , Brandon MacDougall and Lee Stringer in creating the scene . While working on the scene Lebowitz hit upon the idea of what was to become the " " calendar series . In the ENT series bible , the orbital Utopia Planitia facility was referred to as one of two main Starfleet bases as of 2151 , the other being on Earth . The Martian outpost was also mentioned as a place where Charles Tucker III worked , prior to his assignment aboard " Enterprise " .