For other meanings see the Pathfinder disambiguation page.

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, a pathfinder is the first starship of a class of ships, conceptually similar to the lead ship concept of Earth's navies. Potential pathfinders are each assigned a registry number beginning with an 'NX' prefix; when a pathfinder is found to be satisfactory, the prefix is replaced with 'NCC' and a class based upon or identical to it is put into production.