Space Shuttle Discovery - Flown Payload Bay Liner

The Flown Payload Bay Liner on the Space Shuttle Discovery covered insulation and kept the payload area clean on its many flights in space. This liner is made of fire-resistant beta cloth and prevented possible dust cross-contamination between the shuttle's systems and its cargo.

This piece of payload liner was removed after Discovery’s mission to deploy science instruments (STS-85) on August 7, 1997.

Each sample of the flown payload liner is housed in an acrylic jar and is shipped in a glass topped Riker display case. These hand-cut specimens measure approximately 1x1cm in size, though variations occur. Some samples include black seams while others are all white.

An information card pertaining to these samples is included to provide basic context.