Hangar bay (Earth-5875)

A hangar bay is a massive room built within starships and space stations to store the vessel's fighters, dropships, as well as other equipments. Every warship of the UNSC and the Covenant have hangar bays; the largest hangar bays are found within carriers, which are located nearly in its back.

Description
The size of a hangar bay varies from ship to ship, a CAS-class assault carrier bay is large enough to fit an entire UNSC frigate or destroyer. In comparison, the hangar bay of an UNSC vessel commonly can only store small shuttles. Shuttle bays within CCS-class battlecruisers are circular, possessing multiple levels that can park two Type-25 Spirits, two Type-31 Seraphs, and eight Type-26 Banshees.

Hangar bays found on Covenant warships feature energy barriers, which serve to dissassemble the ship's pressurized interior from the vacuum of space. Some ship classes, such as SDV-class heavy corvettes, have physical hangar doors in conjunction with energy barriers.