Voyager engineers keep on tickin’ in new documentary ‘It’s Quieter in the Twilight’

NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft launched back in the summer of 1977 on a “grand tour” of the solar system and are still exploring more than 45 years later.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have both ventured into interstellar space and continue to beam data home to a small squad of remaining mission engineers and scientists.

This aged crew of engineers, operating out of unpretentious office space and foregoing promotions and planned retirement, have committed themselves to staying with the longest-running and farthest-reaching mission in NASA’s history. Battling outdated technology and the march of time, Voyager’s flight team sticks with humankind’s greatest exploration endeavor.

Weigel Productions’ “It’s Quieter in the Twilight” is a new space documentary showcasing this dedicated team. Directed by Billy Miossi and produced by Matt Reynolds and Alissa Shapiro, the film arrives in theaters and on demand starting on May 19, 2023.

A special premiere screening and post-film Q&A are planned at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California on May 15 at 7 p.m. local time.

Related: Voyager: 15 incredible images of our solar system captured by the twin probes (gallery)

Here’s the official synopsis:

They watch the bright lights from a distance today. The headlines now go to big names with bigger bank accounts. But, they are comfortable in the quiet; it suits them. Yet this quirky team of brilliant engineers — like the Voyager spacecraft they pilot — are pushing the notion of true discovery, traveling among stars propelled only by dwindling sunlight. While the world has moved on to fancier ships and splashier front men — the celestial journey of the aging spacecraft transcends earthly boundaries — from rural South Korea, the Jim Crow South and the U.S./Mexico border to cement a joint commitment to the mission which has traveled the furthest in human history as the clock winds down.

Featuring Voyager mission team members Sun Matsumoto, Enrique Medina, Fernando Peralta, Jefferson Hall, Todd Barber, Suzy Dodd and Chris Jones.

“There’s a unique dichotomy that drew me into the story of the aging Voyager mission,” Miossi said in a press statement. “The grandest feat of human exploration being steered by a humble few sitting in a drab office space. They seek no fame, no recognition.

“Instead, they’re content to quietly contribute a novel expertise for the sake of a deeper understanding of the vastness that exists beyond our world. Voyager is a once-in-a-lifetime, and perhaps many lifetimes, mission. And so much of what it has achieved over the past several decades is owed to a tiny team of engineers who have forgone promotions and, now, retirement. To understand them, their devotion, is what lies at the heart of ‘It’s Quieter in the Twilight.’ I wanted the world to know these unsung explorers and to know the essential role they’ve played in humanity’s most ambitious adventure.”

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