As Starfleet entered the latter half of the 24th century, it was recognized that a long range, high endurance starship would be needed to explore further from Federation space than ever before. To fill this role, the Advanced Starship Design Bureau (ASDB) developed several long range exploratory cruiser designs. The first of these was launched in the early 2360s as the USS Galaxy (NCC-70637). As the first of these new starships, Galaxy, Yamato and Enterprise-D, began space trials, a newer and more versatile starship was being designed on the drawing boards at Utopia Planitia Fleetyard, Mars. Combining the best features of the previous Excelsior, Ambassador and Galaxy classes along with a reconfigurable hull design, construction of the starships that would eventually be called the Arcturus-