The Type 6 shuttlecraft was a short-range Starfleet auxiliary vehicle carried aboard Federation starships and space stations during the 24th century. (TNG: "Parallels")
Service history
The Type 6 shuttlecraft was introduced sometime prior to 2364. (TNG: "All Good Things...") They were part of the standard shuttlecraft inventory aboard Template:ShipClass, (TNG: "Darmok") Template:ShipClass, (VOY: "Caretaker", "Parallax") and Template:ShipClass (Star Trek Generations; DS9: "Waltz") starships. Space stations such as Relay Station 47 also supported Type 6 shuttlecraft, as did facilities on Earth. (TNG: "Aquiel"; VOY: "Pathfinder")
Technical data
Cross sections of a type 6 shuttlecraft
For propulsion, the Type 6 was equipped with two 1250 millicochrane warp nacelles and microfusion thrusters. It was furthermore equipped with an RCS thruster quad, an atmospheric airscoop for atmospheric flight, and hover field antigravs. There was no standard armament, but the shuttlecraft could be equipped with two type 4 phaser emitters for special purposes. The shuttle also featured a navigational deflector and redundant graviton polarity source generators. (TNG: "The Outcast")
A transporter assembly was also not standard, but the shuttle could be fitted with a portable array. The control systems were intuitive, and a non-Federation pilot could quickly learn to fly the craft. (TNG: "The Outcast") Type 6 shuttles were easily configurable for testing of a variety of technologies. (TNG: "Suspicions")
The cockpit of a Type 6
Entry to the shuttle was through a large hatch in the rear of the vessel. The hatch could be opened via a control pad next to the impulse engines. There were benches for passenger seating in the aft section, and ample room for cargo. A separate systems display was also found in the aft area, as were storage bins. (TNG: "The Outcast", "Suspicions")
By 2374, deflector shields, phaser arrays, and transporter arrays were standard equipment on board Type 6 shuttles. (VOY: "The Raven", "Coda")
List of Type 6 shuttlecraft
Appendices
Background information
The Type 6 shuttle is a modification of one of the full-size Galileo-type shuttles built for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The changes were designed by Rick Sternbach, and mostly involved shortening the length of the shuttle and adding new warp engines and windows. The distinctive front end of the shuttle as well as the aft hatch and impulse engines were retained. A new miniature was built under the supervision of Greg Jein. The designation was established in dialog in "Parallels".
Shuttlecraft "Curry"
This was the last complete full sized Starfleet shuttlecraft built for a Star Trek series, replacing the inaccurate Type 7 shuttlecraft exterior created for "Unnatural Selection" and supplementing the tiny Type 15 shuttlepod built for "Time Squared".
The special feature "Departmental Briefing Year Six - Profile: Dan Curry" of the TNG Season 6 DVD depicts a studio model of a Type 6 shuttlecraft labeled with the name "Curry" (versus "Curie"), named after Dan Curry. It is unclear if this studio model was ever used in any on-screen sequence.
On The Next Generation, reuse of stock shots of the Type 7 were often incorrectly paired with the interior and sometimes exterior of the Type 6. A similar phenomenon happened on Star Trek: Voyager, where the Type 6 interior was shared with the Type 8 shuttlecraft introduced in "Parallax", although the situation display to the left of the pilot always showed a diagram of the Type 8. The Type 6 was even rendered as a computer generated model, but after the introduction of the Class 2 shuttle and later the Delta Flyer, both the Type 6 and Type 8 fell into disuse. The full-sized shuttle exterior was eventually recycled to become Alice for "Alice".