2025 Nominees

The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth

Mindhouse Productions

UK, USA

- History & Biography

The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth is a gripping and multi-layered three-part series that unpacks the story of the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster in 2003. Beautifully shot and edited, the series expertly combines previously unseen archive footage with extraordinary and detailed first-person testimony from people who lived through it all – the astronauts’ wives, husbands and children, and the staff at NASA, some of whom have never spoken before. By meticulously weaving together this archive and testimony, the production team managed to bring into focus the collective decisions made at NASA before Columbia’s launch, during the mission and after the disaster, as well as telling the wider story of one of America’s most iconic institutions. The series is in many ways a commemoration of the men and women who died. But it is also an analysis of went wrong, telling a tale of bureaucracy and how rigidly hierarchical institutions can malfunction.