The Restoration of Star Trek's USS Enterprise in Pictures

Live long and prosper

To do the best job possible at restoration, specialists carefully disassembled the U.S.S. Enterprise into its various parts – saucer section, secondary hull, port and starboard nacelles (engine casings) and pylons (pillar-like support structures), deflector dish array, hangar bay doors and the bridge.

You will always be my friend

A collection of Trek fan photos of Enterprise over the years, which were used to inform the museum's restoration of the model.

Boldly shining in infrared

This image of the Enterprise in infrared shows off pencil marks that were put there during the Original Series run.

Admiral, there be glue here!

Aging, yellowing glue is visible inside of the model Enterprise. In some cases, glue is all that supports the interior, so the museum will support the structure using metal.

Interior 'wessel'

This shows the interior of the vessel's secondary hull, looking aft towards the hangar bay. ('Wessel' is a reference to a famous mispronunciation of the word "vessel" in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.)

Hailing frequencies open

Using what looks like a communicator – but is actually an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer – museum conservator Ariel O'Connor looks at the metal alloy used for the Enterprise's port engine casing.

Set painting to gray

Layers of paint cover much of the Enterprise from years of filming. These layers will be treated with a base color that will exactly match the original gray, which is preserved in a couple of small sections of the ship.

Enterprise in drydock

Museum specialist David Wilson searches for the exact color match of the "Star Trek" starship Enterprise studio model. The museum discovered the model's original grey paint was under the bolt cover of the model's saucer.

Activate lights, mister!

Museum specialists Zabih Sadighian (right) and Larry Berger proceed with initial testing of LED lighting strips hidden inside the "Star Trek" starship Enterprise studio model. They attempt to match the color temperature of the LEDs to photographs of the model from the 1960s. The system uses flexible RGB LED NeoPixel strips that the specialists can adjust and program remotely, allowing them to control the intensity, color temperature, and blink pattern to duplicate the original visual effects seen in the series.