Overview
This variant, the Aurora-P is designed to ferry passengers.
Captain Briggs: ‘A fast ship’? This is the Eon Eagle, son. She did the Antares Circuit in less than a week.
Johnny Starchild: Golly! That’s over twelve parsecs!
Manufactured by Ares Systems, the Aurora class light transport was a mainstay of short-range transportation in the Planetary League during the early part of Era-1. It filled many roles, from ferrying passengers and cargo within a system, to tugboat operations, to mining asteroids. Most organizations within the Planetary League made extensive use of the Aurora, including the PLAS and the PLIN. Few ships of the time were as versatile, and some individual ships flew as late as the War of the Gods (mid-way through Era-2).
First seeing service before the advent of FTL travel, the Aurora was originally designed for interplanetary missions. When fitted with five high-power Ion drives, it had better acceleration than most ships its size when unloaded. Its modular cargo bay was designed to allow for easy modification, and often housed spatial-compression equipment, after that technology was developed. Although it could land on the surfaces of most habitable planets, the Aurora was not intended for extended atmospheric flight, as its boxy lifting body form was not very aerodynamic.
Although the Aurora could be operated autonomously, or by a lone pilot using automation, the most typical configurations had a crew of three, consisting of a pilot, a navigator and an engineer.
Variants
The Aurora had a long history, and was popular both with civilian operators and government agencies. Most Auroras were built either for passenger accommodations or cargo hauling, but over the years a large number of variants were created for this highly adaptable craft.
On outpost missions, an Aurora class vessel typically carried five Tardigrades in suspended animation modules, and flew to its destination on autopilot.
There was also a fleet-escort variant that was heavily armed and widely used.
There was a mini-tanker variant designed to haul liquids in bulk.
