Liftoff Videos
Every mission, with the videos that tell it
Every mission we cover, by year.
Mission: 1986Published: 28 Jan 2026
NBC4's archived live coverage of the Jan.
Published: 11 Dec 2025
Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut hosts a watch-along of Rocket Lab's webcast for the Electron mission "Bridging the Swarm", which was to carry the NEONSAT-1A satellite for KAIST from Launch Complex 1…
Mission: 2003Published: 28 Nov 2025
A documentary on the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia on 1 February 2003, which killed all seven astronauts on the return from the 16-day STS-107 science mission.
Mission: 1986Published: 4 Nov 2025
STS-51-L, the 25th Space Shuttle mission, lifted off on January 28, 1986 in record cold, and Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds later, killing all seven crew members.
Mission: 2025Published: 16 Oct 2025
Everyday Astronaut hosts a live watch-along of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch of 21 Lockheed Martin satellites for the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1 Transport Layer from Vandenberg, with the…
Mission: 2025Published: 29 Sep 2025
SpaceX's Starship tenth flight test lifted off on August 26, 2025, at 6:30 p.m.
Mission: 1986Published: 27 Sep 2025
Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986, and all seven astronauts died.
Mission: 2003Published: 8 Aug 2025
A documentary on the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia on 1 February 2003, which killed all seven crew members on re-entry.
Published: 23 May 2025
A design-focused look at the Mir space station, covering its modules, their origins in Salyut, TKS and Buran hardware, and Galina Balashova's interior design.
Mission: 1986Published: 3 Apr 2025
A short National Geographic UK segment recounts the Challenger accident of January 28th, 1986.
Mission: 2025Published: 7 Mar 2025
SpaceX's eighth Starship flight test lifted off from Starbase with all 33 Raptor engines on the booster igniting, followed by hot staging and a booster catch at the tower.
Published: 6 Feb 2025
Emily Calandrelli documents her November 2024 flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard, the NS-28 mission, which made her the 100th woman to fly to space.
Mission: 1986Published: 25 Jan 2025
A National Geographic special built from archival news reports and NASA footage follows Christa McAuliffe's selection as the first Teacher in Space, the crew's training, and the launch of Challenger…
Mission: 2024Published: 3 Jan 2025
SpaceX's sixth Starship flight test launched from Starbase on November 19, 2024.
Mission: 2024Published: 6 Nov 2024
SpaceX's fifth Starship flight test lifted off on October 13, 2024.
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: 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: 2008Published: 11 Nov 2023
On September 28, 2008, Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit.
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: 2 Sep 2023
SpaceX launched the Space Development Agency's second Tranche 0 mission on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg on September 2, 2023, at 7:25 a.m.
Mission: 2023Published: 17 Aug 2023
Falcon 9 launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on August 16 at 11:36 p.m.
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