Rigel

Rigel announces the successful launch of the female pilots.

Biography

Flight Corporal Rigel is a Colonial Core Command operative on battlestar Galactica. Rigel is noted for being a professional woman who approaches her responsibilities with enthusiasm.

Among her duties in Core Command, her primary responsibility is in the coordination of Viper defense and launch approval procedures (similar to a landing signal officer). She is also responsible for processing data Galactica receives from Vipers out on patrol. For example, she supplies information to Adama and Tigh concerning the Ravishol Pulsar on Arcta (Gun on Ice Planet Zero).

Among her notable moments in Core Command, she becomes quite joyous over the female pilots' successful defense of Salik's medical shuttle (Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I).

Portrayed by Sarah Rush.

Notes

• Rigel was credited only as "Woman on Duty" for "Saga of a Star World" and "Lost Planet of the Gods". This was changed in her subsequent appearance.
• In "The Long Patrol", a computer readout lists Rigel as a sergeant and is thus inaccurate.
• In the re-imagining, Rigel's contemporary is Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla.
• The name "Rigel" is taken from Beta Orionis, in the constellation Orion. It is a B8 Supergiant star, some 400 times brighter than the Earth's sun. It is believed to be a triple star system (see Cyrannus), but it is unlikely any of the stars within the system support life-bearing planets.
• The name is a contraction of the Arabic "Rijl Jauza al-Yusra", meaning "left foot of the Central One", indicative of Rigel's position in the "left foot" of Orion.