Survey Flight

The long journey to Proxima Centauri is over. Mankind has reached the stars at last. Not unexpectedly, there are no habitable worlds orbiting this cold, red star. Hopefully, when the ship completes the second leg of its journey and arrives at the Alpha/Beta Centauri pair, the story will be different.

In the meantime, Marathon makes a minor course change to allow for a flyby of Proxima Centauri III – a terrestrial world is not unlike the solar system’s own Titan. In accordance with the mission profile, the ship will spend just over 2 months here before igniting her main engines again and proceeding to her final destination.

Here, we see Survey Flight One returning from a series of sensor sweeps. Each of the three ships is equipped for different types of observations with flight characteristics designed to maximize its ability. When deployed as a group, they are able to provide a wide variety of highly accurate scans. When more selective information is needed, individual ships can be dispatched.

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Survey Flight is a scene from my Ad Astra setting. Marathon is a repurposed Helios model (by Jason Tinsley based on a design by Korborak). Engine thrust by Simon-3D. Background by yours truly using the Digital Heavens design tools. The shuttlestars and Vanguard model are available at Daz3d. Image created in Daz3d and Photoshop.