Two-man shuttlecraft

The two-man shuttlecraft was a type of small shuttlecraft, a USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) auxiliary craft used in 2279. The vessel was used for traveling to and from a planet’s surface, but also traveled between star systems. The Enterprise carried at least three ships of this type.

Known flights

 * Captain Spock and Lt. Cmdr. Singh piloted Copernicus, the only one of these shuttles identified by name. The mission was to investigate a space buoy located near the rings of a planet in the Fortenue system. This particular craft had two large sensor dishes on the starboard side. During the mission, the ship was struck by an asteroid and plummeted without power to the surface, killing Singh.
 * Admiral James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy took a second one of these shuttles to the surface to rescue Spock and Singh.
 * Infected by a plague and driven paranoid, McCoy stole one of these shuttles and successfully evaded a search by Enterprise’s sensors. McCoy was later found on the surface of Circe-Two.
 * To retrieve a cure to McCoy's infection, Spock piloted one of these shuttles from Circe-Two to Vulcan and back.
 * During a time travel mission by the Enterprise to prevent a plague on Earth in 1983, two young boys Joey and Malcolm successfully flew one of these shuttles out of the hangar bay. Kirk reminded Spock of his sentiment that these shuttles were so easy to pilot that a child could do it. Malcolm commented that flying the ship was like playing a video game. However, the boys encountered trouble once the ship entered Earth’s atmosphere and started to burn up. Hikaru Sulu was able to rescue the shuttle with a tractor beam and get it back in to the hangar bay.

Background

 * This shuttle type may have been of an experimental nature, per the testbed status of the starship during this period. Throughout 2279 the Enterprise was used to field-test experimental equipment, as well as conduct research missions and trainee cruises.
 * It was an unnamed Federation shuttlecraft class. Of the five known craft, only one was referenced by name: the destroyed Copernicus.
 * The shuttles were seen during Gerry Conway's tenure with the US Comics Strips series and were primarily illustrated by Dick Kulpa. In their debut, they were drawn by Ernie Colón, Alfredo Alcala, and Serc Soc.