On that day, his team had found an unusual tile. Most shuttle tiles have burn marks on the exterior, the effect of shielding the orbiter from the searing heat of re-entry. This one had burn marks on its interior surface.
"It was kind of confusing," said Ciannilli, then an engineer for United Space Alliance. "When you see a tile with that degradation on the inside, it poses more questions."
His tile, along with 84,000 other pieces of recovered debris, ultimately led investigators to conclude that a hole in Columbia's left wing allowed superheated air to breach its defenses and melt the wing's interior.
Now Ciannilli is with NASA, overseeing Columbia debris preservation.
He said the debris storeroom, located in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC, has become a shrine where NASA employees go to remember the Columbia crew and remind themselves to never forget its safety lessons.
Even now, a decade later, an occasional piece of debris is found and sent to KSC.
"Our goal," said Ciannilli, now 45, "is to bring every piece of Columbia home."
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