In the wake of NASA’s triumphant Artemis 2 mission to the moon, which safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to return its four-astronaut crew home last week , NOVA is launching a new documentary to reveal an inside look of the historic spaceflight.
Directed by British filmmaker Tim Lambert (“Guns, Germs and Steel,” “Alien Worlds”), the new documentary “Return to the Moon” will air on PBS stations tonight (April 15) at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. Central) to offer a captivating behind-the-scenes examination of NASA’s Artemis program and its engineering challenges as the endeavor moved from 2022’s uncrewed Artemis 1 missionand its unexpected Orion heat shield concerns, to April 1’s liftoff of Artemis 2.
“We wanted to somehow do justice to the extraordinary ambition of the Artemis program and try to chart and chronicle the mission from beginning to end, from soup to nuts, or design to splashdown if that’s more appropriate,” Lambert tells Space.com. “To be an observational documentary eye and follow what’s going on. It’s difficult doing that with NASA because it’s hard getting access to all the things you need access to. Everything has to go through protocol and export control and then it’s just a matter of finding the right moments and piecing bits together.”
“Return to the Moon” targets the design and manufacture of NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with an attention to detail that delivers the titanic core stage right into your living room. We’re also treated to an in-depth look at Artemis 1’s Orion capsule, the post-flight investigation into its partially compromised shielding tiles, the abandonment of the first mission’s double dip skip-entry maneuver, and the remaining risks as Artemis 2’s liftoff arrived.
“When we started, we wanted to get very close to the astronauts and the whole idea that we’re heading toward the first woman and the first person of color on the moon and it seemed like a diversity project when we were back in the Biden days,” he explains. “That’s sort of downplayed now in the Trump days. NOVA’s executives were more interested in the idea of the engineering, and we realized this is kind of a science and engineering show.
“So that nudged us more towards talking to engineers and see behind the scenes, and in a way it’s a very good thing. The astronauts are the rock stars of the project, but the real heart of the story, the question marks about the architecture of Artemis, are all connected to engineering ultimately. That’s what slowed this whole process up, not the astronauts. And that was a moment for us, to read the Inspector General’s report in May of 2024. No one really had any sense of how serious the capsule issue was and how bad the damage was.”
Lambert is old enough to remember the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. As a kid his parents dragged him out of bed to witness that event live on TV.
“They landed on the moon at night time here in England,” he recalls. “We were woken up and told it was really important. I became an Apollo nut after that even though I was only six or seven. Like every other kid I wanted to be an astronaut. So for me it’s like, ‘Wow, we’re certainly going back there.’ We wonder why it took so long, but now we’re here. It feels like a new age of inspiration. Whether Artemis and its huge ambitions can deliver or not remains to be seen. Not to plant a flag and pick up some rocks, but to actually put down a moon base is like science fiction. That to me is the inspiration, and I hope we get a little of that across in the film.”
<em>Nova’s “Return to the Moon” premieres on PBS Wednesday, April 15, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on PBS and will also be offered for streaming at pbs.org/nova, NOVA on YouTube, and the PBS App.