As NASA releases the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, this film tells the inside story of the telescope's construction and the astronomers taking its first picture of distant stars and galaxies. Will it be the deepest image of our universe ever taken? The successor to Hubble, and 100 times more powerful, the James Webb is the ... most technically advanced telescope ever built. It will look further back in time than Hubble to an era around 200 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies appeared. Webb's primary mission is to capture the faint light from these objects on the edge of our visible universe so that scientists can learn how they formed, but its instruments are so sensitive it could also be the first telescope to detect signs of life on a distant planet. The James Webb Telescope is an £8 billion gamble on the skills of its engineering team. It’s the first telescope designed to unfold in space – a complicated two-week operation in which 178 release devices must all work - 107 of them on the telescope's sun shield alone. If just one fails, the expensive telescope could become a giant piece of space junk. From its conception in the late 1980s, the construction of Webb has posed a huge technical challenge. The team must build a mirror six times larger than Hubble’s and construct a vast sun shield the size of a tennis court, fold them up so they fit into an Ariane 5 rocket, then find a way to unfold them in space. This film tells the inside story of the James Webb Space Telescope in the words of the engineers who built it and the astronomers who will use it.
Show More
A new era of space is dawning where small satellites no bigger than a shoebox will be deployed not in one or twos, but in their thousands - referred to as satellite swarms. It's been described as the democratization of space. What was once the preserve of governments and superpowers is evolving into a truly global industry. The catalyst for t ...his dramatic change is this new generation of satellites.
Show More
The film follows Opportunity, the Mars exploration rover launched in 2003, affectionately dubbed Oppy by her creators and scientists at NASA. Oppy was originally expected to live for only 90 days but she ultimately explored Mars for nearly 15 years. With access to archival and interview footage with scientists and engineers and re-creati ...ons of the rover's treks over the Martian landscape in search of water, we will explore her groundbreaking journey on Mars and the remarkable bond forged between a robot and her humans creators millions of miles away. The narrative interrogates the significance of Opportunity's endurance for the future of interstellar discovery.
Show More
There is a region of space that is dangerous for reasons we don't yet understand completely. We see an increased flux of energetic particles in this area and higher-than-usual levels of radiation. It's called the South Atlantic Anomaly. Some scientists now think the long-term effects of this danger zone may be far wider reaching than anyone e ...ver expected, and it may even have implications for the future of humanity in space and on Earth.
Show More
It is a dark, mysterious, and secretive world. A world of clandestine projects, secret rocket launches, and futuristic tech. In December 2019, the United States Space Force became the newest branch of the military. It will defend the vast infrastructure of satellites, currently orbiting largely unprotected above Earth, and be ready to attack ...if they came under threat. This is also the story of the race to build the ultimate space weapon.
Show More
Professor Brian Cox tackles some of the most challenging and intriguing questions facing science. He looks back on a decade of discovery and towards the next space frontier. Brian believes we are at the start of a new age of space travel, where space flight is on the verge of becoming routine. In this episode, he explores the latest scie ...nce and takes a new look at his old films and asks: how far can we go in our exploration of the cosmos?
Show More
The James Webb Telescope is an £8 billion gamble on the skills of its engineering team. It’s the first telescope designed to unfold in space – a complicated two-week operation in which 178 release devices must all work - 107 of them on the telescope's sun shield alone. If just one fails, the expensive telescope could become a giant piece of space junk.
From its conception in the late 1980s, the construction of Webb has posed a huge technical challenge. The team must build a mirror six times larger than Hubble’s and construct a vast sun shield the size of a tennis court, fold them up so they fit into an Ariane 5 rocket, then find a way to unfold them in space. This film tells the inside story of the James Webb Space Telescope in the words of the engineers who built it and the astronomers who will use it. Show More