Liftoff Videos
Every mission, with the videos that tell it
Every mission we cover, by year.
Mission: 1970Published: 1 Jan 2021
After an oxygen tank rupture crippled Apollo 13, NASA and the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat.
Mission: 1970Published: 25 Dec 2020
Part one of a documentary on Apollo 13 covers the crew change, the launch, the pogo vibration on ascent and the oxygen tank rupture 56 hours into the flight.
Published: 22 Dec 2020
NASA/JPL animations show key events in entry, descent and landing for the Perseverance rover, due to land on Mars on February 18, 2021.
Mission: 1993Published: 2 Dec 2020
Servicing Mission 1 launched on December 2, 1993, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, whose primary mirror had been ground too flat.
Mission: 2003Published: 31 Oct 2020
A NOVA documentary on the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia, which broke apart over Texas on re-entry in 2003 and killed all seven crew.
Published: 21 Sep 2020
Skylab was a solely US space station that orbited Earth between 1973 and 1979.
Published: 30 May 2020
ABC television and radio coverage from July 1979 follows Skylab's return to Earth.
Published: 18 Apr 2020
A documentary on how Skylab was damaged during its Saturn V launch, when a heat shield was torn away and one solar array was left stuck.
Published: 16 Apr 2020
A NASA Goddard documentary on the Hubble Space Telescope, from its shuttle launch and troubled deployment to the mirror flaw and the servicing missions that followed.
Mission: 1970Published: 11 Apr 2020
NASA's documentary on Apollo 13 draws on interviews with astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise and flight directors Gene Kranz and Glynn Lunney.
Mission: 1986Published: 19 Nov 2019
A long documentary on the January 1986 loss of Space Shuttle Challenger on mission 51-L.
Mission: 1970Published: 2 Oct 2019
Apollo 13 launched April 11, 1970, and was meant to land at Fra Mauro.
Mission: 1986Published: 20 Jul 2019
Challenger STS-51L, carrying seven crew including teacher Christa McAuliffe, began to disintegrate 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986, killing all seven.
Mission: 1969Published: 6 Jul 2019
An explainer on how NASA sent live television from the Moon during Apollo 11's first moonwalk, watched by 600 million people.
Mission: 1969Published: 23 Oct 2018
Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969, carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Published: 1 Aug 2018
This documentary traces how the Hubble Space Telescope was built after the Challenger loss, launched on the shuttle Discovery, and found to have a flawed mirror.
Published: 31 Jul 2018
New Horizons flew by Pluto in July 2015 and returned the first close images of its surface.
Published: 11 Mar 2018
SpaceX's short video describes Falcon Heavy as the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, able to lift nearly 64 metric tons to orbit.
Mission: 1970Published: 3 Mar 2018
This 1994 documentary follows Apollo 13 from its April 11, 1970 launch through the oxygen tank explosion on the way to the Moon.
Published: 6 Feb 2018
Coverage of the Falcon Heavy test flight, including the countdown, liftoff, booster separation and the landing attempts of the two side boosters and the center core.
Mission: 2018Published: 6 Feb 2018
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Demonstration Mission launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 6 February 2018 at 20:45 UTC.
SpaceX's official webcast covers the first test flight of Falcon Heavy from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Published: 28 Jan 2018
NASA's New Horizons probe flew past Pluto in 2015 after a nine-year journey, passing about 12,500 kilometers from the surface on 14 July.
Published: 25 Sep 2017
A NASA documentary on Skylab, which launched on May 14, 1973.
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