Gundam World Index
UC Timeline
AC Timeline
Space Colonization
The Earth Federation
Zeon and Neo Zeon
Minovsky Physics
Beam Weapons
Mobile Suit Basics
The One Year War
Ace Pilot Gallery
Mobile Suit Classics
01: MS-01 Mobile Suit
02: MS-04 Early Zaku
03: MS-05 Zaku I
04: MS-05 Zaku I
05: MS-05 Zaku I
06: MS-06A Zaku II
07: MS-06C Zaku II
08: MS-06S Zaku II
09: MS-06C Zaku II
10: MS-06S Zaku II
11: MS-06F Zaku II
12: MS-06E Zaku Recon
13: MS-06Fs Zaku II
14: MS-06J Zaku II
15: YMS-07A Gouf
16: YMS-08A Prototype
17: MS-07H Gouf
18: MS-07H-4 Gouf
19: MS-06M Zaku Marine
20: MSM-01 Zaku Marine
21: MS-06RP Zaku II
22: MS-06R-1 Zaku II
23: MS-06R-1 Zaku II
24: MS-06R-1A Zaku II
25: MS-06R-1A Zaku II
26: MS-06R-1A Zaku II
27: MS-06R-1A Zaku II
28: MS-06G Zaku II
29: MS-06D Zaku Desert
30: MS-06D Zaku Desert
31: MS-06D Zaku Desert
32: MS-06K Zaku Cannon
33: MS-06K Zaku Cannon
34: RX-75-4 Guntank
35: RX-77-2 Guncannon
36: RX-78-1 Gundam
37: RX-78-2 Gundam
38: RX-78-2 Gundam
39: RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam
40: MS-07B Gouf
41: MS-07B Gouf
42: MS-07C-3 Gouf
43: MS-07C-5 Gouf
44: YMS-09 Dom
45: MS-09 Dom
46: YMS-09D Dom
47: MS-06R-2 Zaku II
48: MS-06R-2 Zaku II
49: MS-06R-2 Zaku II
50: MS-06R-2P Zaku II
51: MS-06RD4 Zaku II
52: MS-R09 Rick Dom
53: MS-06E-3 Zaku Flipper
54: MSM-03 Gog
55: MSM-04 Acguy
56: MSM-07 Zugok
57: MSM-07S Zugok
58: MSM-10 Zock
Mobile Suit Gundam, Z Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Gundam F91, Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Gundam 0083: Last Blitz of Zeon, Gundam: The 08th MS Team, and Gundam W: Endless Waltz are copyright Sotsu Agency and Sunrise. V Gundam, G Gundam, Gundam W, and Gundam X are copyright Sotsu Agency, Sunrise and TV Asahi. Turn A Gundam is copyright Sotsu Agency, Sunrise and Fuji TV.
Mobile Suit Classics 1
MS-01 Mobile Suit
Illustration by Mark Simmons
The development of the mobile suit started in UC 0071, when the Zeon military began planning new weapons for the era of Minovsky physics and solicited proposals for an agile, highly mobile space fighter. Two companies vied for the contract; while MIP's MIP-X1 was a more conventional space fighter, Zeonic's radical ZI-XA3 used a humanoid form for greater flexibility and manueverability. It was this latter design that won the contract, and in 0073 Zeonic began work on the newly-christened Mobile Suit project under the close supervision of Colonel Kishiria Zabi.
Thus it was that Zeonic's prototype ZI-XA3, renamed the MS-01, became the first mobile suit. Standing about 14 meters tall and weighing just 17 tons, it was smaller and far less powerful than the combat mobile suits that were to follow it.
This rendition of the MS-01 is based on an illustration in the art book MS ERA, which was revisited by Genpachi Tokaimura in volume 2 of the magazine G20. The latter publication was the first to identify this primordial mobile suit as the fabled MS-01.
