Orbital Drydock Facility The Orbital Drydock Facility was a spacedock where the first warp five starship , , was constructed . Service record . " Enterprise " was launched from this facility early on a mission to the Klingon homeworld in 2151 . ( ) In 2153 , " Enterprise " was retrofit ed in this spacedock to upgrade her for the mission to find the Xindi and stop a second weapon from being launched against Earth . ( ) In May 2154 , " Enterprise " departed from this spacedock shortly before investigating the Augment Crisis . ( ) Layout . The Orbital Drydock Facility was made up of five cage segments , with one long section providing the dorsal part of the cage and two smaller sections on either side providing the port and starboard parts . These sections housed banks of lights facing inwards , towards where the ship would be located . The dorsal sections also supported a small windowed station in the center of the facility as well as rails that four movable construction arms were attached to . Housed in the center joint of the smaller sections making up the walls of the cage were small stations . Each station had a total of four airlock s at the and stern , one facing outwards along the centerline where other segments could be added as well as one airlock each facing port , starboard , and ventral . An airlock was also located on the centerline facing " outwards " from each station . One of the segments on the port side also had a large antennae farm located just below the station . ( ) Appendices . Background information . This docking facility may be part of the Warp Five Complex , but this possibility was never confirmed . The facility was referred to simply as a " Spacedock " in the script of " Star Trek : Enterprise " pilot episode . In a blueprint of the " Enterprise " s bridge that was auctioned off in the " It ' s A Wrap ! " sale and auction ( item # 4654 ) , the spacedock is referred to as Orbital Drydock Facility 314 , Station 15 B . The CGI model for the " Orbital 6 " inspection pod used in " Broken Bow " also had markings on the side reading " Orbital Drydock Facility " and " Shipyard Ops " . This is where Memory Alpha gets the name from . Exterior design . While the look of the spacedock was not yet decided , about four conceptual passes at designing the dock were tried out . The first of these , dated , was decidedly contemporary while also heavily influenced by the chronological setting of . Senior illustrator John Eaves , who was involved in designing the dock , later explained , " " We were designing a new segment in time just a few decades prior to . The idea was to retro back everything from the 60 ′ s iconic series to a more NASA and nuts and bolts kind of look . With that in mind we ventured into a new yet older style of spacedock / drydock design with a skylab feel to the aesthetics . The result of this path [ was ] [ . . . ] a large circular space station with massive solar arrays and domed details to bring us all back into a more present time of space architecture with a slightly futuristic feel . " " However , the designers instead finally settled on a more chunky version of the traditional drydock as established in . Pierre Drolet , a visual effects artist at Foundation Imaging , was largely responsible for deciding how the spacedock turned out . " " He just said , ' Let me see what I can come up with , ' and ultimately [ the producers ] went for it , " " remembered Foundation ' s Robert Bonchune . " " Pierre built something that was sort of a step backward from " The Motion Picture " drydock . A little beefier , a little more like the dry dock from " Generations . " ( ) The dock included some other minor details that helped differ it from previous docks , such as the one in " The Motion Picture " . " " It is still a drydock shape ; it ' s just clunkier and a little more primitive , " " said Bonchune . " " We put in little things like grappler hooks at the bottom to move things around . There are little details like gold foil and thermal blankets on some things . " " ( ) Production illustrator Doug Drexler was not entirely satisfied with the final exterior design of this facility , commenting , " " The fiver seemed as big and complex ( perhaps even more so ) than the drydock from TMP . " " Drexler also admitted to having " never understood " the large antennae farm included as part of the five - fingered facility . Depiction in launch sequence . Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga , in their capacity as the writers of " Broken Bow " , originally wanted a vast stadium to be witness to the starship " Enterprise " s departure from the dock , though these scenes were thereafter moved to being set on an observation deck of the spacedock itself . " " We always imagined a stadium full of people , but you never quite end up with as much as you want , " " acknowledged Braga . ( " Broken Bow " audio commentary , ENT Season 1 DVD ) The spacedock ' s observation deck was actually a redress of the " Enterprise " armory set . ( " Broken Bow " text commentary , ENT Season 1 DVD ) The interior scenes set in this room were filmed on , on Paramount Stage 18 . ( " Broken Bow " call sheet ) Subsequently , the spacedock ' s observation deck was optically enlarged ; visual effects added a secondary balcony to the room as well as more audience members than the number of extras who had been on the set . ( " Broken Bow " text and audio commentaries , ENT Season 1 DVD ) " " When we saw the dailies , Rick Berman decided that the event should be bigger and have more people , so I figured out a way I could hand - paint set extensions , " " recalled visual effects producer Dan Curry . " " By reducing and tweaking perspective and shooting background people against greenscreen , we were able to build layers of audience and make the room bigger than the original set had been . " " Curry was ultimately very proud of the launch sequence , which Rob Bonchune also worked on . ( , pp . 26 - 27 ) Other representations . A CGI render of this spacedock can be found in the ENT Season 1 DVD , as part of a computer - animated sequence that introduces the main menu for each disc . Another CG depiction of the drydock was published in the book " Ships of the Line " ( p . 5 ) , in which an image by Sean Scott shows the dock housing " Enterprise " while the ship is in an initial stage of construction . Apocrypha . In the novelization of , this spacedock is referred to as consisting of geodesic parts that were assembled on Earth before being constructed in space , expanding the dock to its full size therein .