Next week, PBS’s science strand NOVA will premiere Return to the Moon, which follows NASA’s Artemis initiative and delivers the latest footage from the Artemis II mission.
The doc will air on PBS and will be available to stream on the PBS website and app and on the NOVA YouTube channel. It follows the four members of the Artemis II crew on the 10-day journey around the Moon and back, venturing beyond Earth’s orbit for the first time since Apollo and traveling farther into the Solar System than any humans before them. The doc is produced by Wall to Wall Media for GBH and BBC in association with Arte France.
“NOVA has been covering space missions for more than 50 years, and yet we’ve never had the chance to follow a crewed mission to the Moon in real time,” said NOVA co-EP Julia Cort. “It’s easy to forget what a tremendous challenge it is to send astronauts beyond Earth’s orbit and bring them back again safely. We’re excited to finally be able to give viewers an inside look at the problems the engineers have to solve and how the mission unfolds.”
“When humans first went to the Moon, NOVA didn’t yet exist. But I did!” added Chris Schmidt, co-EP. “I vividly remember the incredible excitement felt by the whole world in sharing that human achievement, and if we can generate something akin to that awe and wonder in this film, we will be tremendously gratified.”
“These are exciting times in human spaceflight,” said the film’s director, Tim Lambert. “Having been confined to Low Earth Orbit for half a century, NASA is dreaming big again—working with commercial partners to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon. Artemis II is the first step on the journey, and it is a privilege to have witnessed this mission come into being.”
