Catch up TV
The UK Space Race
The Sky at Night team investigates the incredible science and engineering helping the UK to blast into space. We are now one of the biggest satellite building nations in the world, and the race is on to be the first company to successfully launch a rocket into orbit from British soil.\n\nChris visits Skyrora, a rocket company near Glasgow, to find out how rockets are built and why launches so often go wrong. Skyrora are planning their first orbital launch later this year; Chris learns how each stage of their rocket is designed for a successful lift-off.\n\nMaggie is given a sneak preview of the brand new National Satellite Test Facility. Until now British-built satellites have been shipped abroad for the final tests of whether they can withstand the harsh environment of space. But this is all about to change with the opening of the huge NSTF. Maggie sees how a satellite up to 7,000kg will be vibrated to simulate launch conditions. She steps inside the vacuum chamber where they will be exposed to extreme temperatures. And she sees the construction of the enormous EMC, where communication signals can be tested in secret.\n\nA result of the rapidly expanding space industry is that nearly 900 objects have been launched into space in the last year. Chris meets Professor Andy Lawrence to talk about the impact this is having on astronomy and the images captured by telescopes such as Hubble. \n\nAnother key issue is space debris – shrapnel from defunct missions and missile tests. Astronomers are currently keeping track of more than 23,000 pieces of debris larger than 10cm, and this space junk poses a danger to new satellites as well as the astronauts on board the ISS. Radio astronomer Professor Danielle George visits Clearspace, a company hoping to solve the space junk problem with technology designed to gently capture this debris in orbit.\n\nAnd our in-house stargazing expert Pete Lawrence shows us why June is a great month for solar observing as well as the summer asterisms.
Source: BBC 4
Most recent episodes of The Sky at Night
The Sky At Night
Big Black Holes And Little Red Dots
Professor Brian Cox joins the team to explore one the greatest current mysteries in astronomy - little red dots. Discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they have u ...
11-08-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
The Aliens Next Door?
Could alien life exist closer than we think - perhaps right next door? A paper published in 2025 suggested that strange markings discovered on Mars could provide some of the str ...
15-07-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Space Weather: The Perfect Storm
Life on Earth depends on the sun for its light and its warmth. But the activity of our nearest star also poses a serious threat to all of us. In the most extreme cases, solar st ...
09-06-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Jodrell Bank: Tuning Into The Universe
It started 80 years ago with a field, army surplus, wartime radar and a visionary idea - and it changed how we see the universe forever. In this episode, we step inside the rema ...
12-05-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Destination Moon
Maggie Aderin, self-proclaimed lunar-tic, examines Nasa’s Artemis II mission: the first crewed journey towards the moon in more than 50 years. It’s a mission designe ...
14-04-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Space Mysteries: The Sky At Night Meets Curious Cases
Do aliens exist, and can we talk to them? What does a black hole sound like? Does the universe look like a doughnut? In a spectacular season finale, The Sky at Night teams up wi ...
13-11-2025
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Brits In Space
Three, two, one, lift off! This edition launches into the extraordinary - and extraterrestrial - world of astronaut training, discovering what it truly takes to become a Europea ...
15-10-2025
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
The Expanding Universe
The team explores one of the greatest discoveries of modern astronomy - that our universe is expanding - and the new questions it raises about how the cosmos works.\n\nIn the 19 ...
10-09-2025
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Queen Of Pulsars
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a discoverer and an explorer of the distant cosmos, and she has walked among the stars. She discovered the first pulsar in 1967 - a discovery so imp ...
14-08-2025
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Exoplanets - Strange New Worlds
The team go on a cosmic adventure, exploring one of the newest areas of modern astronomy – the search for exoplanets, the distant bodies that orbit stars beyond our own so ...
16-07-2025
BBC 4
Most popular episodes of The Sky at Night
The Sky At Night
The Aliens Next Door?
Could alien life exist closer than we think - perhaps right next door? A paper published in 2025 suggested that strange markings discovered on Mars could provide some of the str ...
15-07-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Big Black Holes And Little Red Dots
Professor Brian Cox joins the team to explore one the greatest current mysteries in astronomy - little red dots. Discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they have u ...
11-08-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Review Of The Year
Chris and Maggie look back at some of the stories they have covered in 2021 in the Sky at Night’s big review of the year.\n\nIn February, three missions arrived at Mars. A ...
16-12-2021
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Mars And Meteorites
In February, orbiters from China and the UAE settled into their positions above Mars, and Nasa’s Perseverance rover touched down on its surface. Maggie Aderin-Pocock revie ...
15-04-2021
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Webb Telescope: The Story So Far
In July 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope released its first images. They were visually stunning, and it was clear they provided more detail of stars, galaxies and planets th ...
11-07-2024
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Space Rock Return
The Sky at Night is back for a brand new series, and this month it is delving into Nasa’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which last year brought back a sample from the near-Earth ast ...
11-04-2024
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
The Multiverse Of Mystery
The Sky at Night in the Multiverse of Mystery is a magical journey into the far-flung ideas at the very edge of scientific knowledge, exploring the concepts that today seem like ...
17-11-2022
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Telescope On A Plane!
Telescope on a Plane!\n\nIn this special programme, the Sky at Night takes to the air on board the largest airborne observatory in the world – a specially modified jumbo j ...
09-12-2018
BBC 4