The Hawking was a Federation type 7 shuttlecraft that was in service to Starfleet in the latter half of the 24th century, attached to the USS Enterprise-D. It was named for Stephen Hawking.
In 2367, Commander William T. Riker used the Hawking to fly Trill Ambassador Odan to a conference on Peliar Zel so he could moderate a dispute between Alpha Moon and Beta Moon. The Hawking was attacked en route and severely damaged. Riker had to pilot the shuttle back to the Enterprise as Odan refused to be transported since it would damage the symbiont. (TNG: "The Host")
The Hawking was named after physicist Stephen Hawking. (Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 185)
In the Diane Duane novel Dark Mirror, the Hawking was reconfigured to serve as a transporter "booster" which would allow personnel from the Enterprise to board their mirror universe counterpart without detection. The shuttle was completely gutted and had a full transporter buffer installed, but was destroyed after being detected by the ISS Enterprise-D.
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