Liftoff Videos
Every mission, with the videos that tell it
Every mission we cover, by year.
Published: 16 Oct 2024
A documentary history of Skylab, NASA's first space station, built from Apollo-era hardware.
Published: 14 Oct 2024
A history of the Mir space station from its 1986 core module launch on a Proton rocket to its 2001 deorbit.
Published: 30 Sep 2024
Five spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2 and New Horizons, are on one-way trajectories out of the solar system.
Published: 17 Sep 2024
Explains why the Apollo Lunar Module looked the way it did: a two-stage design by Grumman built to save weight, with four legs, honeycomb shock absorbers, small windows and a thin hull wrapped in…
Published: 16 Aug 2024
The lunar module ascent engine was the one Apollo engine classed as so critical that even minor changes needed sign-off from NASA's highest management, because a failure on the Moon would leave no…
Mission: 1998Published: 22 Jul 2024
The video explains why the International Space Station is due to be deorbited by SpaceX around 2030 and sent into the sea at Point Nemo.
Published: 18 Jun 2024
Compares the 33 Raptor engines on SpaceX's Super Heavy booster with the five F1 engines of the Saturn V.
Mission: 1998Published: 7 May 2024
A DW documentary on the International Space Station, whose first module, Zarya, was launched on a Proton rocket on 20 November 1998.
Published: 5 May 2024
A history of Skylab, America's first space station, from the Apollo Applications Program origins and the switch from a wet to a dry workshop, through the damaged launch on May 14, 1973, the three…
Published: 11 Feb 2024
A National Geographic Superstructures episode that takes the International Space Station apart system by system.
Mission: 2003Published: 1 Feb 2024
ABC News' Feb. 1, 2003 broadcast reported that Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry, killing all seven astronauts, about 16 minutes from home.
Mission: 1977Published: 23 Dec 2023
A documentary on the Voyager probes, launched from Cape Canaveral in 1977, following them past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and out to interstellar space.
Published: 22 Nov 2023
An animated explainer on how the International Space Station was assembled in its early stages using the Space Shuttle and the Canadarm robotic arm.
Mission: 1986Published: 30 Sep 2023
Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on January 28, 1986 and broke apart 73 seconds into flight.
Mission: 2023Published: 3 Sep 2023
SpaceX and NASA broadcast the autonomous undocking of Crew Dragon Endeavour from the ISS on September 3, 2023, carrying the four Crew-6 astronauts home.
Mission: 2023Published: 27 Aug 2023
SpaceX and NASA's live coverage follows Crew Dragon Endurance from its approach to the International Space Station through docking on Sunday, August 27, with Crew-7.
Mission: 2023Published: 26 Aug 2023
SpaceX and NASA's live coverage of the Crew-7 launch on a Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center on August 26, 2023, at 3:27 a.m.
Published: 11 Aug 2023
An explainer on the engineering choices that let the Voyager probes keep working for about 45 years, including plutonium-238 power generators, backup thrusters, onboard computers and 8-track tape…
Mission: 1986Published: 24 Jul 2023
A minute-by-minute account of Challenger mission STS-51-L, which launched on January 28, 1986 and broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew.
Mission: 2023Published: 1 Jul 2023
SpaceX launched ESA's Euclid space telescope on a Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida at 11:12 a.m.
Published: 22 May 2023
A children's science episode explains why rovers are sent to Mars instead of people.
Mission: 1969Published: 3 May 2023
This documentary traces the road to Apollo 11, from Sputnik and Kennedy's 1961 goal through Mercury, Gemini and the early Apollo flights.
Published: 20 Dec 2022
An explainer on why Artemis 1 took a 26-day route to the Moon, compared with six days for Apollo 8.
Mission: 1970Published: 13 Nov 2022
An hour-by-hour account of Apollo 13, from launch on a Saturn V to the oxygen tank 2 explosion at about hour 56.
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