CBBC launch two new science series

Space Hoppers is a brand new seven part series featuring interplanetary adventures featuring physicist Professor Brian Cox and, following the success of the first season of Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab, there will be a further twenty-six new episodes of the popular science-based gameshow.

Anne Gilchrist, Controller of CBBC, who commissioned both series, said: “It’s great for CBBC to have two such powerful science series. It is perfect inspirational material for an audience which is constantly curious about the world around them and how it works.”

These programmes are part of CBBC‘s commitment to producing 550 hours of factual programming in across this year and next.

Space Hoppers will launch in 2010, the BBC‘s Year of Science, and is being made in conjunction with BBC Science’s series Seven Wonders Of The Solar System, which will also be presented by Professor Cox.

The first series of Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab, broadcast earlier this year, was a huge success for CBBC, peaking with a 23.3% share with 6 to 12-year-old viewers.

The series is set in a fictitious underground laboratory in the grounds of his supposed stately home. Richard invites two groups of three friends into his lab to take part in his crazy experiments and compete against each other to win prizes.

Richard said: “I can’t wait to get back in the lab and get on with some science. I had to give my Lab Rats a bit of time off after the last series, but if they have too long away from the lab they forget important stuff, like putting explosive chemicals away safely and washing. Actually, it’s the forgetting to wash that’s the worst.”