Star Trek: How fast is warp speed?

When things really get going in the “Star Trek” universe, the spaceships fly at warp speed. This is a significantly higher speed than the speed of light. There are different warp levels, the highest of which would be warp factor 10. Anything above that breaks the transwarp limit.

In the 23rd century, warp factor 10 is considered extremely unsafe. Anything faster than Warp 10 is therefore rarely used. For example, the Orion reconnaissance ship in the “Star Enterprise” episode “Journey to Babel” flies at warp 10. But what does that actually mean?

Star Trek: The highest warp level flies at a speed of 6.4 billion kilometers per second

In Star Trek: Voyager the speed of warp was defined. The episode “The 37s” makes it clear that warp factor 9.9 is a whopping 21,400 times faster than the speed of light. That’s around 6.4 billion kilometers per second.

This is the fastest level that is regularly used. From the 24th century, in which “Voyager” is set, everything above Warp 10 means that ships travel to all places in the universe at the same time, essentially getting from A to B without any time delay.

Breaking this transwarp limit of warp factor 9.9 also requires more powerful engines than regular warp engines. A drive capable of this is called a transwarp drive.

Due to the uncertainty when crossing the transwarp limit, all speeds beyond that do not initially play a role. Starfleet starships tend to fly at slower speeds, so in this article we’ll focus on the speeds possible with regular warp drive.

Warp factors and their speeds

• Warp 1: Speed ​​of light
• Warp 2: Eight times the speed of light
• Warp 3: 27 times the speed of light
• Warp 4: 100 times the speed of light
• Warp 5: 200 times the speed of light

Since not all speeds are specified in the “Star Trek” universe and small details are sometimes changed within the universe, it is difficult to say how fast individual warp factors are. There are also intermediate levels such as 9.975. For example, the USS Enterprise-A from “Star Trek: The Movie” was supposed to have a maximum speed of Warp 13, but this was not mentioned in the film.

When the film was made, the filmmakers weren’t entirely sure how fast certain warp factors would be, so numbers were simply given to show how much faster the new model was than the old one.

The information about the Enterprise-A’s Warp 13 capability was ultimately no longer included and today it is not part of the official canon, as not even Starfleet starships from the 24th century fly faster than Warp 9.9. “The film” takes place in the 23rd century.

The USS Enterprise, which Captain Pike commands in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”, flies at a maximum speed of Warp 8. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 3 is currently being filmed. It is still unknown when the new episodes will start. We list all new “Star Trek” releases for you!