Editing Chief Science Officer (section)

==Probes==

The detailed examination of many objects and phenomena in the galaxy can be handled routinely by the ship's/station's onboard sensor arrays, up to the resolution limits of the individual instruments and to the limits of available data extraction algorithms used in extrapolating values from combinations on instrument readings. Greater proportions of high-resolution data of selected sites can be gathered using close approaches by instrumented probe spacecraft. These probes are generally sized to fit the fore and aft torpedo launchers, providing rapid times-to-target. Three larger classes of autonomous probes are based upon existing shuttlecraft spaceframes that have been stripped of all personnel support systems and then densely packed with sensor and telemetry hardware.

'''''See Also: [[Federation Sensor Probes]]'''''