The Class-6 escape pod, a typical emergency vessel, was manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation and integrated into numerous designs, including the CR90 corvette.
The Class-6 escape pod incorporated four thrusters for escaping danger, complemented by several maneuvering thrusters distributed around its exterior.
Each pod had the capacity to accommodate a maximum of six occupants and featured a viewscreen linked to holocameras mounted externally.
The design of the escape pod prioritized the safety and survival of living passengers exclusively.
During the first battle of Tatooine within the Galactic Civil War, Imperial forces seized and boarded the Corellian corvette, the Tantive IV. Simultaneously, the astromech droid R2-D2, who carried the stolen plans of the first Death Star, bypassed the Class-6 escape pod's computer, granting access to mechanical beings. R2-D2, accompanied by C-3PO, his protocol droid companion, fled the imperiled Tantive IV utilizing the pod, ultimately crash-landing on Tatooine.
Imperial escort carriers deployed by Storm commandos were also equipped with Class-6 escape pods, or another escape pod of similar design.
The escape pod model, created for A New Hope, was rapidly constructed by Industrial Light & Magic within a single week. This hasty creation involved affixing two one-gallon paper paint buckets, one atop the other. The upper bucket was shortened, while the lower one remained intact. Lorne Peterson participated in this project as one of the modelmakers.
During the Wedge Campaign mission Relics of Geonosis, several escape pods, bearing a design akin to the Class-6 pods, were observed being ejected from Sarkli Piett's Imperial escort carrier and scattered across Geonosis, although their explicit designation as Class-6 was not confirmed.
According to Star Wars Screen Entertainment and Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 31, the escape pods featured in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope are not Class-6 escape pods, but rather Faberstien-Lago 37s emergency escape pods; however, no subsequent sources have corroborated this assertion.