Pelican-1

Pelican-1 is the call sign used by a space shuttle from Helldivers and Helldivers 2. It arrives at the end of every mission to extract the players back to the Super Destroyer.

Lore
The Pelican shuttles are tiltwing SSTO transport shuttles, with a medium-caliber (exact round unknown) gun mounted underneath the cockpit on the front of the vessel. Pelicans are restricted to vertical take off and landing due to the design of their landing gear.

Pelican shuttles have an internal crew compartment that can transport up to four passengers at a time, with an additional seat in the cockpit for the pilot (and possibly another for the co-pilot). Additionally, heavy cargo-- such as the Patriot Exosuit-- can be latched to the bottom of the Pelican for transport.

Although the Pelican shuttles' engines seem to be just jet engines, they are apparently capable of both atmospheric and vacuum operation, suggesting they are actually some type of advanced rocket engine, combined-cycle engine (featuring both airbreathing and closed-cycle operation modes), or are nuclear thermal jets. Whatever engine type it may be, it must be incredibly efficient; the design of the shuttles suggests very little fuel volume (at least, very little fuel volume compared to what one would expect from a single-state-to-orbit spacecraft).

Gameplay
The shuttle arrives after 2-3 minutes from calling in an extraction at the end of a mission. Upon descent, the shuttle starts firing its frontal gun at nearby enemies.

Extraction time depends on mission difficulty and mission modifiers.

The shuttle has a health pool and can catch on fire and become unusable after enduring a certain amount of damage.

Trivia

 * According to an achievement from Helldivers 1, the shuttle pilot's name is Frank ("Make Frank kill a Tank!"), at least during the First Galactic War.