Project Backstep was initiated by the National Security Agency (NSA) after the Roswell incident of 1947. The crashed alien saucer was taken to a secret base called "Never Never Land" in the Nevada Desert where it was reverse-engineered. By reverse-engineering the alien technology, they were able to create a time machine. The "time machine" consists of the Chronosphere, including the Chronosphere's hangar and its supporting equipment.
The Backstep Project could only backstep seven days because of limitations imposed by the fuel source and its reactor. As the fuel source was limited, there was a strict mandate that they only Backstep for events relating to national security. The backstep team and the equipment were stationed in a base called Never Never Land, which is in a remote area of the Nevada desert near Groom Lake known as Area 51.
The time machine used Element-115 salvaged from the Roswell crash. This transuranic element allowed them to generate a time distortion field around the Chronosphere. The sphere would be teleported away from the hangar and into space, after which the chrononaut, Frank Parker, steered the sphere towards the required space and time coordinates (referred to as "flying the needles").
While it may appear that the time machine was the Chronosphere itself, this was not the case. The Chronosphere had its own power source for navigation and avionics, but it didn't produce the time displacement field for time travel. Instead, the Element-115 fuel source, the reactor and the gravitational field generators were located outside the Chronosphere. A waveguide conduit connected the reactor to the Chronosphere, whereby the gravity wave generated by the Element-115 fuel source was "pumped" towards the sphere. The sphere would then latch on to this gravity wave whereby it is converted into a time displacement field, which is a localized region of spacetime distortion. Due to the limited amount of Element-115 fuel, it had to be used sparingly. Furthermore, due to the limitations of the reactor size and output power, the time displacement field had sufficient energy to send the Chronosphere back in time for only seven days. The Element-115 fuel source could "regenerate". It would be depleted after each Backstep, and it took seven days for the fuel to regenerate to an amount necessary to charge the reactor up to 100 percent. Because of limitations imposed by the fuel source and its reactor, it was only possible to "backstep" seven days. There was therefore a strict mandate that time travel is only permitted to avert disasters relating to national security.
The technology utilised natural laws of time travel whose side-effects operated to prevent a timeline being cohabited by more than one version of a person or object. As a result, anything arriving from the future replaced its past self. The effects of the future upon the new arrivals remain in place, creating a paradox that allows information to be sent to the past. For this reason, the on-duty chrononaut was typically confined to base, since the absence of the chronosphere and/or its pilot was used as a means of determining a backstep has taken place.
 
Naval Lieutenant Francis Bartholomew Parker, a former Navy SEAL and ex-CIA operative who suffered a mental breakdown after being tortured as a prisoner in Somalia was brought out of a secret CIA mental institution in 1997 to be the project's chrononaut. Navy SEAL Captain Craig Donovan was the backup chrononaut
   
The Chronosphere and ancillary epuipment were designed and constructed by Dr. Isaac Mentnor and John Ballard, assissted by Russian scientist Dr. Olga Vukavitch, all overseen by mission director Dr. Bradley Talmadge.
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