Federation Type 6 Shuttlecraft[]
This Shuttlecraft is a natural development from earlier types of shuttles. The intent is to allow a party of crew members to leave the ship and perform missions outside of transporter range or for a more extended period of time.
Type 6 Federation Shuttlecraft
The Type 6 is warp capable, but this is low speed and low duration compared to a full-sized starship. Only someone foolish or desperate would try any long distance. A Shuttlecraft is intended to carry people around a single solar system in reasonable comfort for reasonable distances.
Federation Shuttlecraft tend to be robust, failure tolerant and well equipped.
The Type 6 was created in the early 2340s as a successor to the Type G Shuttlecraft and directly replaces that ship.
Users should take care with older type 6's and type 8's - technicians frequently tend to make field modifications of these machines. Becoming familiar with these modifications before setting out can save a lot of trouble later. Type 6 shuttlecraft are still being manufactured in some places in the Federation and are standard issue on several classes of Starships.
They are ubiquitous and can be seen all over the Federation.
Meta[]
The Galileo 5 Models and Props were created for Star Trek V in 1989. They were thematically Linked to the Enterprise-A.
As soon as the Galileo 5 prop became available, it was rebuilt for TNG into the Type 6 shuttlecraft. In 1987 they tried to make a Shuttlecraft that was thematically linked the Enterprise-D design. The models and drawings looked good, but they could never make a stage prop of the shuttlecraft work. The curves were too weird. This was called the type 7 shuttlecraft.
So after STV wrapped up, the TNG crew adopted the prop and the models and rebuilt them, giving them a TNG look, and different nacelles.
For Generations (1994) there was one shot of a shuttle that had a TNG style nose and windows, but the STV style body and nacelles. This is the Type G shuttle.
When Voyager started they once again redesigned the Type 6 Prop and Models with a more Voyager look. This effort was largely wasted. Only seriously nerd folks notice the difference, and in a narrative sense, the TNG and VOY version of the shuttle were interchangeable.
It started a sort of Trope that every ship in Star Trek has to have its own shuttles with nacelles that resemble the hero ship of the series.