Why this site exists
Launch broadcasts, mission explainers and documentaries are spread across the space agencies’ own channels and a large number of independent creators. They are rarely in any order, and almost never mission by mission. Finding everything about one flight, from its launch to what it achieved, means searching several channels and piecing the story together yourself.
What we do about it
Liftoff Videos is an independent library of videos about real space missions, from Mercury and Apollo to the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, Mars rovers, space telescopes and Starship. Each mission has its own page with its launch date, crew and outcome, and the launch coverage, documentaries and explainers that tell its story.
- Videos in order. Every video is filed by mission and by agency, vehicle, programme, destination and type of mission, so you can follow a rocket, a programme or a planet across many flights.
- Structured facts. Each mission page keeps the same key facts in the same place: launch date, vehicle, crew and outcome.
- Checked facts. Facts are checked against the agencies’ own mission records and, for accidents, the official investigation reports. How we check facts explains the process.
Videos come from the space agencies’ own channels and from independent channels known for careful, sourced work. Every video is checked before it is published, and plays from its creator’s YouTube channel. Missions that ended in the loss of a crew are covered from official reports and sourced documentaries only.
Who writes this
Articles are published by the Liftoff Videos editorial team under four house bylines. Each has its own angle: the crews, the hardware, the robotic explorers and the history of the programmes. They are pen names: their profiles say what each one covers and how they write, not a career.
Lena Haugland
Crewed flight and the people aboard
Lena Haugland writes about crewed spaceflight: the missions, the spacewalks and the long months on the space station, told through the crews and flight controllers who made the decisions. She works from the agencies' mission reports and published air-to-ground transcripts, and introduces each crew by name and role. When a mission ended in the loss of its crew, she tells the story the official investigation established, with care and without drama, and closes with what later crews carried forward.
Rafael Quintero
Rockets, engines and how the hardware works
Rafael Quintero covers the hardware: rockets, engines and spacecraft, and what happens inside them from ignition to orbit. His pieces break launches into clear sequences, explain ideas such as staging, Max Q and reusability in plain words, and use the numbers the agencies and companies publish. When a test flight or launch goes wrong, he reports what the operator and any investigation found, keeps the two apart, and ends with what changed for the next flight.
Anjali Mehra
Robotic explorers and what they found
Anjali Mehra writes about the robotic explorers: rovers, landers, probes and space telescopes, and what they sent back. Her guides start with the question a mission set out to answer, follow it from launch to arrival, and list the findings with the agency release or paper behind each one. She keeps the scientists' careful wording, so "consistent with" never becomes "proof", and she ends each piece with the open questions that are still waiting for the next mission.
Theo Adeyemi
Programmes, timelines and what came next
Theo Adeyemi writes the programme histories and timelines: how Mercury led to Gemini and Apollo, how the shuttle and the space station years unfolded, and where Artemis and the new commercial vehicles fit in. His guides are built on dated timelines and connect each mission to the ones before and after it, across agencies and countries. He sticks to cited sources for budgets and policy, treats every nation's programme with the same care, and ends each piece with what came next.
More about how we work
This site is not affiliated with NASA, SpaceX or any other agency or company named here.