New one-hour special shows how NASA engineers built and launched the most ambitious telescope of all time, and the transformational discoveries this new eye on the universe has the power to uncover

BOSTON, July 1, 2022 (PBS PR) —The PBS science series NOVA, a production of GBH will premiere a one-hour special, ULTIMATE SPACE TELESCOPE, Wednesday, July 13 at 9pm ET/8C on PBS. The film, which will also be available for streaming online at PBS.org/nova, on NOVA’s YouTube channel, and on the PBS video app, tells the dramatic story of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and most innovative space telescope ever built, designed to peer deeper back in time and space than humans ever have before. The special takes viewers behind the scenes through the eyes of the engineers and scientists who have dedicated years—some even decades—of their lives to getting Webb off the ground. And, the film will feature some of the telescope’s highly anticipated first images—the day after NASA releases them to the world—along with reactions from some of the team.   

Michael Collins (Patrick Kennedy) looking at the Moon out of the Command Service Module window. Collins orbited the Moon alone in the CSM while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin conducted their historic Moonwalk. (Credit: BBC Studios)

ARLINGTON, VA; June 5, 2019 (PBS PR) – PBS is taking viewers on a unique adventure with the crew of Apollo 11 for their eight-day, three-hour, 18-minute and 35-second mission in 8 DAYS: TO THE MOON AND BACK, a new film co-produced with BBC Studios. Premiering Wednesday, July 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET as part of the previously announced “Summer of Space” multiplatform experience, the documentary seamlessly blends authentic rare mission audio featuring candid conversations between Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins with newly shot studio footage, NASA and news archives, and stunning CGI recreation of the historic journey and landing to bring this adventure back to life.

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Apollo 11 astronauts trained on Earth to take individual photographs in succession in order to create a series of frames that could be assembled into panoramic images. This frame from Aldrin’s panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site is the only good picture of mission commander Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface. (Credit: NASA)

BOSTON (PBS PR) — American Experience today announced Chasing the Moon, a four-hour documentary series about the space race, from its earliest beginnings to the monumental achievement of the first lunar landing in 1969 and beyond. Premiering on PBS in 2019 during the 50^th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the series is executive produced by Mark Samels and produced and directed by Robert Stone. Chasing the Moon is Stone’s eighth project for American Experience. Distribution outside the U.S. will be handled by PBS International. Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, will publish the book Chasing the Moon, by Stone and writer/researcher Alan Andres, to coincide with the PBS premiere. The book will include and expand on the stories shared in the documentary.
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