USS Leondegrance

The USS Leondegrance (NCC-2176) was a Federation starship operated by Starfleet from 2288 to 2336. 
From 2301 to 2305, the Leondegrance was commanded by Captain Nyota Uhura on an exploratory five-year mission to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, during which the ship participated in over one hundred first contact missions. ( commemorative placard)
In 2317, the Leondegrance became a training vessel, with Uhura remaining in command until her retirement in 2333. According to a commemorative placard for the ship that was displayed at Starfleet Academy, "countless Academy cadets experienced faster-than-light for the first time aboard the Leondegrance". ( commemorative placard) 
That was the case, on April 4, 2327, when Cadet Jean-Luc Picard joined the Speed of Light Club after he flew three hundred-thousand kilometers per second in level flight on this cruiser. He was awarded a certificate celebrating this occasion, which was later stored in Picard's section of the quantum archive at the Starfleet Archive Museum. ()
Following the ship's retirement, it was placed on permanent display in the Fleet Museum. ( commemorative placard)
== Appendices ==
=== Background information ===
Production designer John Eaves created the first mention of the USS Leondegrance as part of Picard's Speed of Light Club certificate, which was based on the US Navy's real Thousand Miles-Per-Hour Club. Eaves took the name Leondegrance from the character Patrick Stewart played in the 1981 film Excalibur. 
The certificate referencing Picard's first faster-than-light flight aboard the Leondegrance was among the props displayed at the San Diego Comic-Con Jean-Luc Picard: The First Duty exhibit in the summer of 2019. 
The idea that Picard served under Captain Uhura on the Leondegrance has its roots in a story proposed for , in which a young Picard would have been mentored by an elderly Uhura. Although the proposed Short Treks episode never came to fruition, the two pieces of set dressing (the Speed of Light Club certificate in Picard's quantum archive and the commemorative plaque at Starfleet Academy) establish the relationship canonically. 
The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko mentions that Benjamin Sisko's maternal grandparents served under Captain Uhura's command of the Leondegrance.
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Category:Federation starships