The Horizont serves as the primary, heavy lift cargo shuttle for the Mars Base military, a delicate swan like winged spacecraft. While other Mars Base ship designs can land on a planetary surface through brute force use of their thrusters, the Horizont was designed to operate well in a planetary atmosphere with large wings and an aerodynamic shape compared to the Garfish and Ikazuchi.
Minimal interior space inside the Horizont's hull is given over to its human crew, resulting in a cramped ship with its full crew complement aboard. The primary nexus of the shuttle is contained in its wedge shaped nose. Foremost is the cockpit/bridge area, with controls for the pilot and co-pilot, as well as four stations for the sensors, engineering, communications and tactical planning. A door at the rear of the cabin leads through a short corridor to the Horizont's small eating and sleeping area. Though the room features 10 beds and an eating/food preparation table it is quite small and cramped, with off duty crewmembers sharing the room with on duty members. The command cabin and lounge can be ejected in space to form an escape pod, with enough emergency life-support aboard to keep the crew alive for 2 days.
Down a short stairwell leading from the Horizont's nose into its 'neck' is the Ride Armor trooper bay. 14 soldiers in full armor lie in acceleration couches in the floor, with their stored mode Ride Armor above them. Beyond this is a small hallway with a set of stairs down to the Legioss access bay. After the First Earth Recapture Mission, the TREAD was developed to extend the abilities of the Legioss. However, the fighter bays on the Garfish and Ikazuchi could not easily take the linked mecha and the Horizont was modified to carry a combined Legioss-TREAD on it's underbelly, and provide the Horizont with some cover of it's own.
The bay can be raised and lowered, fitting air tight around the Legioss from the mid-nose to just in front of the upper missile pods of the mecha's retracted arms. With the bay down the shuttle's technician can change the Legioss's fuel cells as well as top up its life-support system. There is no access to the linked Tread via the bay, and it is usually unmanned. When the linked Armo-Fighter is ready to be launched, the bay is raised and the docking grapples release the Legioss/Tread Link-up as it throttles up. Rear of the Legioss bay is the shuttle's three primary engines, inaccessible by the crew from the inside of the Horizont.
The Horizont's main claim to fame is its two hexagonal cargo pods hanging from the shuttle's wings, each capable of carrying a large volume of supplies or mecha down to a planetary surface. Each pod is self-contained and there is no access from inside the Horizont.
The designers envisaged that the Horizont shuttles would receive protection and cover from the fleet's fighters and orbiting ships, trading armor and weaponry for increased cargo carrying capacity and more powerful thrusters. In actual combat against the Inbit, the fast and highly maneuverable Iigaa Booster flew rings around the slower Horizont and proved hard for their fighter cover to take down. The other option Horizont pilots had was a desperate race to outpace the incoming Inbit, unfortunately most were unable to safely enter Earth's atmosphere at such high speeds and burned up. Many surviving Mars Base troops, scavengers and resistance units searched for downed Horizont shuttles, the heavily armored cargo pods and their valuable contents usually remaining intact, hopefully arriving before the Inbit and their human sympathizers.
TYPE: Dive Transatmospheric Troop Shuttle.
CREW:8, including a mission commander, a pilot, a co-pilot, a communications
specialist, a sensors specialist, a technician, Ride Armor squad commander,
and a pilot for the Legioss.
TROOPS:12 Ride Armor Troopers.
TOTAL OF STANDARD SHIP COMPLEMENT: 20, in addition to those in the two cargo pods.
MECHA COMPLEMENT:
1 Legioss/TREAD Link-Up. Can detach and reattach even in flight. A pilot for the TREAD is unneeded, and there is no way to enter or leave the TREAD while it is attached to the Horizont.
14 Ride Armors onboard the shuttle.
Cargo pods can carry 4-8 larger mecha each, or 96 Ride Armors and their riders each, or a combination, or 300 metric tons of cargo.
MAIN POWER PLANT:1 Mars Base Fusion Reactor. Supplies power for ship functions and thrusters.
PROPULSION:
3 Main thrusters: Hydrogen Reaction Thrusters with fusion energizer.
4 Emergency Thrusters: 2 mounted on the back of the shuttle's nose, 2 mounted on the back of the cargo box connection point. Used mainly to avoid incoming attacks or to quickly leave the combat zone.
4 Retro Rockets: Mounted on the Horizont's underside. The retros are also used for landing and take off.
Planetary Capabilities: In Earth-like atmosphere the Horizont can use it's retro rockets to land or hover for brief periods, or use it's main thrusters to cruise with 2140 kph or fly with at maximum of 6600 kph.
MAXIMUM RANGE: Reactor life of 10 ten years. Fuel supplies for aproximately 6 to 8 weeks constant travel, however life support supplies can only provide for the total combat ready crew level for one week. Cargo pods can provide only life support for only a day at most.
Empty cargo pod 60 tons empty 360 tons at maximum load.
WEAPON SYSTEMS: None. The Horizont relies on it's combined Legioss/TREAD for protection.
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:
Full Radar and optical sensors, internal gravity with a limited inertial dampening field,
short-range radio and laser communications, long range radio system.
The Third Recapture Force vessels of this class were fitted with Dark stealth technology in the
months before their attempts to liberate Earth from Invid occupation.
Note: The most commonly seen ship in the series, we see pretty much all of the Horizont, inside and out in the very first episode.
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