A heighliner is a type of fictional starship used for interstellar travel in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. These enormous spaceships are the "major cargo carrier of the Spacing Guild's transportation system."
Duke Leto Atreides speaks of them in Dune (1965):
A Heighliner is truly big. Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little corner — we'll be just a small part of the ship's manifest.
In Dune, it is stated that Heighliner operation requires a Guild Navigator, who uses a limited form of prescience (made possible by the spice Melange), to guide the ship at the very high speeds needed for interstellar travel. The later novels state that such travel requires both a Holtzman drive and a Guild Navigator. The drive uses the Holtzman effect to "fold space" and allow virtually instantaneous interstellar travel. The Navigator is needed to find a safe path through folded space and guide the ship. Navigators are confined to giant tanks, completely immersed in highly-concentrated orange spice gas.
Unable to land, heighliners jump from point to point, parking in planetary orbits. Orbital ferries or interplanetary spacecraft load and unload the heighliner. Special laws govern travel aboard a heighliner; heighliners are considered neutral territory and all acts of war aboard heighliners carry stiff penalties.
According to the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy (2002–2004), heighliners are invented by Norma Cenva during the Butlerian Jihad. The Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy (1999–2001) establishes that in subsequent millennia, the ships are manufactured on the planet Ix. During the events described in the 2001 prequel Dune: House Corrino, a heighliner is expertly spacefolded into a cavern under the surface of Ix, incapacitating an occupying army during the Atreides-led liberation of the planet. In the novel, heighliners are noted to be more than 20 kilometers long.
Read more about this topic: Dune Technology