Columbia debris in a Kennedy Space Center hangar

The largest pieces of Columbia’s wreckage were laid out on a grid on the floor of the reconstruction hangar. While a few larger structures are readily identifiable, such as the nose landing gear in the foreground, the vast majority of recovered debris was too small to be placed on the grid. Such items were examined at forensic stations placed around the walls of the hangar. Of the more than 80,000 pieces of debris recovered, only about 700 could not be positively identified. Credit: NASA Kennedy Space Center