The Starfleet vessel that delivers Doctor Julian Bashir and Lieutenant Jadzia Dax to Deep Space 9 in 2369, shortly after Commander Sisko takes charge of the station.
The USS Cochrane is mentioned in Emissary, the opening episode of Deep Space Nine. Sisko has only just arrived on the stripped and damaged former Cardassian station when the Cochrane docks, bringing his new chief medical officer, Julian Bashir, and his science officer, Jadzia Dax.
The arrival sets up two of the episode's introductions: Bashir's tactless enthusiasm for what he calls frontier medicine, which offends Major Kira, and Sisko's reunion with Dax, the Trill symbiont he knew in its previous host, Curzon.
The ship is named after Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive on Earth. It should not be confused with the shuttlecraft Cochrane carried by the USS Voyager, in which Tom Paris later breaks the warp ten barrier.