Outbound Flight Project


 * You may be looking for the novel Outbound Flight or the vessel Outbound Flight.

Outbound Flight was an expeditionary project that sent a mission of six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights and 50,000 men, women and children beyond the borders of the Galactic Republic into the Unknown Regions where they hoped to pierce the edge of the galaxy and seek out extragalactic life.

The project was the brainchild of famed Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, who desired to discover other Force-sensitive species. His efforts were blocked by the Republic bureaucracy, until C’baoth thwarted an assassination attempt and gained the Senate support he needed. The assassination attempt was secretly engineered by the shadowy Sith Lord Darth Sidious; though it failed (but this was probably Sidious' intent all along), Sidious saw an opportunity in the project to slay several powerful Jedi. He was fearful of what the project would uncover however.

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine eventually approved Measure 4213.0410, allowing the project to go ahead.

The explorers were housed in a mobile space station composed of a central fuselage surrounded by six Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers designated D-One through D-Six; together, the massive ship was known as Outbound Flight. The expedition departed from Yaga Minor in 27 BBY.

As Outbound Flight departed, Palpatine detached a task force of fifteen of his most modern warships from his personal fleet to destroy the mission. When Palpatine’s interception force encountered the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, Kinman Doriana, a trusted aide of Palpatine, convinced its leader, the young Mitth’raw’nuruodo (later the Imperial Grand Admiral called Thrawn), to aid in the destruction of the explorer fleet. Mitth’raw’nuruodo, now convinced that the Jedi posed a threat to the Chiss Ascendancy, mounted a preemptive strike against the force, destroying all but one ship intended to carry the fate of Outbound Flight back to the Republic. If the Outbound Flight Project had been successful, the inhabitants of the Galaxy could have had an early warning of a number of hostile species including the Yuuzhan Vong, the Ssi-Ruuk, the Tofs, the Nagai and the Killiks. In 22 ABY, Chiss explorers discovered the remains of Outbound Flight and its support ships fifty years after its destruction. On a remote planet within a star cluster known as The Redoubt, the survivors of the project had founded a meager, self-sufficient colony.

Behind the scenes

 * Dark Force Rising indicates the project departed 42 years before the Clone Wars (66 BBY), a conjecture made by Timothy Zahn before LucasFilm's development of the precise timeline of the Clone Wars.
 * The New Essential Guide to Characters indicates the project departed 31 BBY, but this is superseded by the date given in the subsequent novels.

Appearances

 * Outbound Flight
 * Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition 16:5:241
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Force Rising
 * Survivor's Quest