OV-165

OV-165 was an American space shuttle orbiter operated by NASA in the 2010s and 2020s. This ship belonged to the second generation of space shuttle orbiters, which was intended to be the successor to the -type shuttles. It was designed as a single stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle. The ship was used for launching commercial and scientific satellites, as well as bringing components to interplanetary vehicles such as the Shango X-1. ( opening credits; )
When Jean-Luc Picard, disguised as the security guard P. Trotter, encountered his upset ancestor, Renée Picard, in a room depicting several pieces of space history located at the site of a Los Angeles gala in 2024, he told her to "look up" and asked her to tell him about the ship above her. She identified it as the "OV-165 shuttle", adding that "I called her "Spike" because she's got these kick-ass aerospike engines to use less fuel." ()
== Background information ==
This ship was first seen in the opening titles of Star Trek: Enterprise as Linda Park's credit plays, right after the International Space Station (a 1990s concept), and prior to a scene of the Phoenix in 2063. 
While no name or agency's logo were seen on the ship, the number follows the registry system used during the 1981 to 2011 NASA space shuttle missions on the space shuttle orbiter craft used by the United States of America, a system that began with Challenger OV-099 and Enterprise OV-101. The stated that "the designation [...] was intended to suggest that it was a descendant of the real-life NASA Space Shuttle Enterprise, which had the registry number OV-101." It additionally stated that the OV-165 "employed a design".
A StarTrek.com feature on the sequence described it as a "hypersonic spaceplane". 
The reference book Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, published in , featured a similarly shaped craft on page 40. It was called the Space Ferry, the successor of the space shuttle from 2003 to 2015. It was equipped with an aerospike engine and did not require booster rockets for lift-off.
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