The original requirement called for the Type 2 to be fully warp capable, as was its predecessor, but here the project ran into difficulties. The new Miranda / Constitution designs had introduced, among many other things, a completely new nacelle design. This had suffered from considerable difficulties when introduced; getting the engines into the proper balance tended to be very difficult, requiring prolonged computer modelling and simulation for each individual vessel. Use of the engines when not properly balanced tended to generate wormhole-like phenomena, as encountered by the USS Enterprise on her first warp flight after completing her refit in 2271.

Although these difficulties where eventually solved for the larger ships, the miniaturizing of the nacelle design for use on board the Type 2 compounded the problem. The first three Type 2 shuttle prototypes produced where all lost to wormhole effects; fortunately all three where flown unmanned and no loss of life was incurred. Great efforts where made to try and correct this difficulty, but by 2274 the design was still unworkable and Starfleet dropped the entire project.

However, the need for a shuttlecraft still existed and so by 2276 the Type 2 had been reborn as the Type 3. Starfleet decided that the miniaturization of the warp drive was a lost cause, and modified the design so as to limit the shuttle to impulse flight only. After this development proceeded remarkably smoothly, but Starfleets understandable caution led to a rather prolonged testing programme; the first prototype was successsfully flown in 2278, and the first production test model was delivered late in 2279. Series production began in 2280, with the first units arriving at their starships in June of that year.

After a successful first year in service, Starfleet stepped up production of the Type 3 and began to deliver them fleetwide in large numbers. The type quickly became a very common sight in Starship shuttle bays, and it remained in service well into the 2300's.