How much energy is contained within an ISD?

[The Legend Rado Tharadus]

Ok, so lets assume we have a normal ISD, fully loaded and combat ready.

Can someone tell me how much fuel it carries and also what sort of other armaments it carries (such as missiles or bombs)? What is the typical fuel used to power the ship and how does it compare to antimatter?

Also, how long can an ISD last before it needs refueling?
thanks

ps sorry if this has been covered.

[The Legend Rado Tharadus]

Hmm.

Is there silence because this topic has been covered a thousand times?
Or because no one really knows?

Anyone?

[Sarevok]

According to some ASVS fanfics an ISD carries five year's worth of fuel. Not sure if there is a canon basis for this. But considering the energy density achieved by the Death Star this might be true.

[Praxis]

There's silence because you posted in the middle of the night

Anyway, in none of the books or the movies have we EVER seen an ISD refuel, so we really don't know.

*Imagines an ISD pulling up to a gas station...*

[Ghost Rider]

There's silence because actually the variety have been cover.

Literally you are asking nothing more then what a variety of old books cover of the ISD...and heck a great deal can be found on this site alone.

So for the basics:

1. Has Five years worth of supplies.

2. Armament of enough to outfit a Wing of TIEs as well as a garrison for the STs and other imperial fortresses it contains.

3. Comparison to antimatter....well look at how much energy antimatter/matter reaction acquire and look at how much an ISD would need to move.

4. 5 years.

[The Legend Rado Tharadus]

Thanks for the info. 5 years is huge! Hypermatter must be some sort of "hyper" fuel

Anyway, I was just wondering about how hypermatter interacts with its surroundings. Does it explode when the ships reactor is breached (like antimatter) or is it like some sort of nuclear material that breaks up after exploding?

I'm guessing from the DS explosion that it is unsafe once the reactor has been damaged, but does it need to be in contact with anything specific for it to blow?

[Connor MacLeod]

Technically the ship has "six years" worth of consumables IIRC WEG data correctly. And while its reasonable to assume the ship's reactor can operate at least as long.. the problem there is.. at what energy level? Is it at peak operating levels, or something much lower? (and what constitutes peak? How high an acceleration is "normal", etc..)

On the other hand, we can derive an estimate based on what we know of the Acclamator. According to the AOTC ICS, the Acclmaator stores its fuel supply in silos at a density that is orders of magnitude greater than the bulk of the ship itself. In general, this means that the fuel of a ship is around 100 times (at least) more massive than the ship itself.

So, if we assume around 20 million tons for a standard ISD (which is a figure that has been tossed around before, IIRC).. that means the ISD carries about... 2 billion tons of fuel (2e12 kg) at a minimum. 1 kg of matter is equal to roughly 9e16 joules of energy, meaning an ISD (assuming 100% efficiency) carries at least 1.8e27 joules in fuel, total. If we assumed a peak sustained reactor output of around e24 watts, it could maintain this output for about 15-20 minutes.

[Connor MacLeod]

As for hypermatter.. we dont know much about its properties. We know its produces its energy by annihilation (much along the lines of a matter-antimatter reaction, although the mechanics by which the matter-to-energy conversion occurs are different from a M/A-M reaction - hypermatter doesn't require normal matter to produce energy AFAIK.) Its also extremely compact and exceptionally dense (as mentioned above.) - much more so than more conventionla fusion or antimatter could be capable of (hence why SW ships tend to have small or almost nonexistent fuel supplies.)

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Would it be possible to remove the underscores in this guy's name? It's really annoying how it shifts everything to the left.