Boeing sues Virgin Galactic.

There are a lot of lawsuits going in Boeing's direction lately.

I don't want to make light of that either.

There are some very serious issues going on with Boeing, clearly given what's been happening with its airplanes in the last few years.

And a Boeing lawsuit is our top item for the briefing today, but it's not what you might assume.

This time, Boeing is the one filing the lawsuit.

Today is March 26, 2024.

I'm Maria Varmausas, and this is T-minus.

Boeing sues Virgin Galactic over trade secrets.

Ingersoll ran to purchase ILC Dover for a cool $2.3 billion.

Apex's Aries sends a selfie from space.

And our guest today is Dr.

Elena Hyde, director of York University's Allen I.

Carzwell Observer Observatory.

We're going to be discussing the April 8 solar eclipse here in North America, so stay with us for that chat.

Here's a look at our intel briefing for this Tuesday.

Boeing and its subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences are suing Virgin Galactic for $25 million.

The lawsuit says that the sum of money is what Boeing is rightfully owed for its work on a new generation ship, which the lawsuit just refers to as the "mother ship" and does not specifically name.

The work that Boeing's lawsuit refers to came under a contract between the two companies in 2022, in which Boeing's Aurora agreed to provide design engineering services.

In addition to the "sought" amount, the Boeing lawsuit also accuses Virgin Galactic of holding on to Boeing's intellectual property from this work, like test data and math equations, and demands that Virgin destroy this retained data.

In the lawsuit, Boeing alleges that, and I quote, "These trade secrets are proprietary information to which Virgin Galactic holds no contractual rights," and that the retained intellectual property could be used by Virgin Galactic, and I quote again, "to advance design of a new mother ship on its own or with a different supplier."

For each part, Virgin Galactic says, "We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend ourselves in the appropriate form."

Ingersoll Rand has announced its intention to purchase ILC Dover for approximately $2.33 billion.

ILC Dover is best known in the space world anyway for being the primary supplier of space suits for NASA, but it also makes products that are used for safe handling of pharmaceutical agents during drug manufacturing processes.

Ingersoll Rand says it will establish a life sciences platform within its precision and science technology segment consisting of the company's life science-focused brands plus ILC.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter, and it includes an earn-out tied to the achievement of select operating efficiency metrics in 2024.

Apex has announced a successful demonstration of end-to-end capabilities of the Ares platform.

The company received what it's calling a selfie from the Ares Serial #1 call to adventure mission.

The image was taken by a payload owned by Apex, which completed commissioning last week.

The picture was taken by a camera mounted on the satellite bus's payload deck.

And the company says that all the major subsystems, including power, thermal, GNC, and communications, all had to work together to acquire and downlink the photograph, which Apex says proves the mission's success.

Space-based data analytics and space services company, Spire Global, has closed its previously announced registered direct offering of over 2 million shares of Class A common stock at a purchase price of $14 a share.

The gross proceeds of the sale will provide the company with approximately $30 million before deducting placement agent commissions and other offering expenses.

The company has also issued the investors in the offering an option to acquire up to an additional approximately 2 million shares at a price of $14.50 per share until 100 days from the date of closing, which could result in additional gross proceeds of approximately $31 million.

Spire Global says it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for repayment of debt, working capital, and general corporate purposes.

What a world we live in when a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch no longer even makes any kind of headline.

Today, however, it's worth mentioning that Monday's flight, which launched a further 23 starlink satellite, Slow Earth Orbit, was also the 175th flight of the vehicle from launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral.

And speaking of SpaceX, the company held a static fire test of six Raptor engines for the next Starship vehicle.

The company says the test is in preparation for the next Starship launch, which is expected fingers crossed as early as May.

SpaceX and the FAA are still analyzing data from the March 14 launch of the Super Heavy vehicle, and SpaceX aims to launch the Starship a further six times this year.

We'll see about that.

When staying in Texas, the state governor Greg Abbott held a press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center to announce the new Texas Space Commission.

Now with the Texas Space Commission, our great state will have leaders who are laser focused on advancing the next generation of human space exploration and connecting that exploration with real life economies here in our country and across our globe.

They will encourage the development of emerging technologies, promote economic development for space aeronautics and aviation, guide research into space exploration all across our state, help to develop workforce training needed to return to the moon and to eventually reach Mars.

And they will cultivate the infrastructure needed to establish space sports and so much more.

As we return to the Stars with a renewed zeal, NASA is teaming with Texas companies like SpaceX, Firefly, Blue Origin and so many more to achieve the latest dreams of manned space exploration.

Because we'll be the launch pad for Mars.

And as we look to the future of space, one thing is clear.

Those who reach for the Stars do so from the lone star state, the great state of Texas.

And now I will pass it to the...

Admittedly, we're still not sure what the Space Commission is or what it will be doing in the near future, and that's on us, but we can say that this is a hyped up press conference that we think could have been better covered maybe in an email.

Moving on.

Intuitive Machines says its lunar lander has come to a permanent end of life.

The Houston based company shared the message that OD has permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the moon.

The solar powered Odysseus operated on the lunar surface for seven Earth days, which was the expected length of the lander's surface mission.

However, Intuitive Machines held out some hope that the lander, fondly referred to as OD, would wake up when sunlight bathed its solar arrays once more.

Alas.

A package of 3D mapping technology designed by Australia's National Science Agency, also known as CISRO, has reached the International Space Station after being launched on SpaceX's 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission.

The payload was developed in partnership with Boeing and with the support of the ISS National Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center.

The technology will provide multi-resolution scanning for potential use in monitoring unmanned outposts.

Astronauts will fit the device onto a NASA robot called Astro-B that roams the station and can assist with a range of tasks including mapping the layout of the orbiting lab.

I love Astro-B.

I'm always happy to talk about it.

And that concludes our briefing for today.

Head to the selected reading section of our show notes to find further information on all the headlines that we've mentioned.

You'll also find an announcement from Momentus about their new CFO and details from Venus Aerospace on their inaugural supersonic drone flight.

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[Music] Our guest today is Dr.

Elena Hyde, director of York University's Allen I.

Carzwell Observatory.

I spoke to Elena about the solar eclipse that's coming up on April 8th across North America and what viewers can expect on that day.

There's an absolutely massive eclipse event coming up this year on April 8th and this will affect a huge region of North America covering parts of Canada, the US, and Mexico.

So this eclipse path is going to have a wide swath and pretty much throughout all of North America with the exceptions of Alaska from the US and parts of the Yukon and actually a corner of British Columbia.

They won't be able to see anything, but the rest of us will.

So even in over in Vancouver, they're going to get a partial eclipse.

In Winnipeg, they're going to get a partial eclipse.

In Nebraska, they're going to get a partial eclipse.

Here in Toronto, partial eclipse.

However, if you want to know where the real action is, there's a very narrow little swath that's going to get the total eclipse.

And so that's the spectacular image that most people will have seen online of the sun becomes dark and you get this beautiful white glow around it.

That's the corona.

And that is something, and this is very important.

You are only going to see if you are in one of these very narrow region areas that is covered by totality.

So there's a huge amount of places that are going to experience a partial eclipse, which means you won't notice anything unless you have viewing technology out.

So you have viewers, you've got safety-rated glasses, something like that, a pinhole camera.

Also for people who are looking for eclipse glasses, just keep in mind that there are verified sellers, so you do want to make sure you get the real ones.

Do not use sunglasses.

Do not look directly at the sun.

Do not use regular sunglasses of any kind.

They do not work to actually protect your eyes from the sun.

You could really, really get bad damage to your eyes.

And people have been known to go blind from this, so I just don't want to have people getting eye damage.

But if you go to the time and date or the eclipse.aas, they have lists of solar viewing glasses for eclipses.

And I guess you folks in the US don't have a Canadian tire, but you do have Walmart, and they actually do have NASA, most places that I've seen have NASA solar viewers, especially when you have a fairly large portion of your partial eclipse being an event.

So if you're at 30% or higher, you have something to see.

Assuming there is no heavy cloud cover, which is what I am betting on where I am located on that day.

Yes, and if you have heavy cloud cover, even in the heaviest heavy cloud cover, if you are in totality, you will still notice something, because it will go from being heavy cloud cover to being nighttime amounts of darkness.

And the animals will still react, actually, to that shift.

And so one of the interesting things about totality is that it is an experience.

The temperature changes, the wind will change, the animals will react, because light, and I mean, we can get into a whole discussion about light pollution, light is very important to our environment, our nature, even the bugs and the birds, as I say, the birds and the bees.

Everything responds to light levels.

And so when you have a sudden change, like you do in totality, there's lots of different things you can notice.

And so it's a very unique and special event that I have never seen.

So I'm going to get in the car and drive and hope for the best.

But if you are in that path, you can't help but notice it.

So just make sure you're not driving somewhere, right?

You don't want to be distracted when totality hits you.

But it's a very, very, very, and I emphasize the word very, very small part of anywhere that's going to see the totality.

So statistically speaking, you're not going to see it unless you are in one of these very small areas.

And just a little bit of fun trivia, even in Canada, up in Montreal, only half of the city gets to see it.

Oh, that's actually managed to go past half of their city.

Oh, that's funny.

I know a bunch of people going to Montreal for that.

So I better check in with them for that.

Yeah, check in.

Make sure you're in the right part of the city.

There are a few cities like that.

So some places like, of course, Niagara Falls, very popular, both sides of the border, totally covered by totality.

You're good.

If you're in Niagara Falls, you absolutely will get to experience totality in some form.

If you do happen to be able to experience totality, it's not a super long event though, right?

It's just a few minutes, right?

Minutes is the long form.

So this event will be between something like one minute, maybe even less, all the way to three or four minutes, depending on where you are.

And so it is absolutely vital to get yourself a good Eclipse calculator.

And I know I mentioned, of course, Niagara Falls earlier.

So Niagara Falls is in a pretty good place.

They're getting three minutes and 30 seconds approximately.

The farther away you get from the center of totality, the less you get.

So you go a little bit outside of Niagara Falls or Rochester and you go out to two minutes.

You get on the edge of totality.

Like that, I say the line that's going through Montreal.

Montreal, yeah.

Yeah.

So you go through the edge there and you might only get 30 seconds of totality or less.

So if you've just walked across the line, it'll be a blink and you'll miss it.

That's amazing.

My gosh.

Does your location, in terms of how north or south you are, if you're on that line of totality, I'm just thinking of people, for example, who are going to be gathering in Texas.

There's a bunch of people doing like Eclipse parties.

But Texas is a great location.

I know it is basically going sort of right through Dallas and a few other places in Texas are getting pretty good shows.

But Dallas itself, it's worth noting, is not going to get all that much time.

It's a little off of totality.

So if you went, what is it, west of Dallas, and I guess you'd have to drive along one of the highways going west.

You could get out to a place where you're in the center of totality and you'd get four minutes and 23 seconds, which is pretty good.

Four minutes.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, I was going to say when you go to Dallas, it's down to three minutes and 52 seconds.

That's still not too bad.

I mean, it's not bad.

It's not bad.

But if you keep going to the edge, it'll go down lower and lower.

So if we're talking about the Dallas region, by the time you go out towards Fort Worth, it's down to two minutes.

That's still not too bad.

I mean, yeah, when we're talking about animals being affected by the darkness, to me, I was just thinking it was just a matter of maybe 30 seconds and I'm going, don't they need a cool down period of a dusk or something?

It's almost like the lights go off and it seems like the many of them immediately react, I guess.

Well, yeah.

And so as totality is happening, what you can imagine is, so the light from the sun is being blocked and the moon is casting the shadow on the earth.

And so the shadow of the moon is actually fairly wide, but the darkest point of the shadow, that's what you need for totality.

And so you have this whole region of atmosphere, of air, that's all of a sudden getting colder.

It's getting a little shock of cold.

And so what happens when you make a bunch of air a little bit colder than it used to be?

Well, it creates wind gusts.

It can create little winds and basically clues to the animals that something is happening.

How noticeable it is will depend on, I mean, obviously, if there's a big storm happening, that's going to throw this out the window.

But you can get a pretty noticeable effect and the reaction from animals in the area will depend on how much time they've had to react and how much they notice.

And obviously, if you're in a very calm place with clear weather, you'll get a much bigger effect and more notice by the animals involved and which animals you'll have to go ask.

You'll have to go have to get a biologist on.

Yeah, I'm asking you questions that are not related directly to your field of study, but I figured I would ask.

The other question I have about this upcoming EPCLYPS is I keep hearing about it being specifically extraordinary in some way.

I don't know if that's just hype, but then I'm also hearing about that it's like the only one we're going to have in a large part of North America for a very long time.

On average, there's an eclipse somewhere on Earth every 18 months, but the chance of it hitting you is real low.

So it will be well over 100 years before another eclipse comes along this kind of path to hit in our area.

By our area, I mean the Toronto, New York part of North America.

You and I are both in the northeastern part of North America.

Yeah, we're in that area.

We would have to wait quite a while to get another eclipse here.

When are you ever going to be this close again?

If you are not afraid to travel, you can always take eclipse cruises.

A lot of them do go through the ocean.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

How much ocean there is on the world.

Yeah, what's funny is I won't be home for the eclipse, so I'm going to completely miss it because I'm going to be at a conference where the eclipse is not going to be happening, which is just killing me knowing that.

Oh man, yes, if your conference can relocate anywhere into the eastern half of North America, you're good to go.

I know.

It will be in Colorado, so I will be nowhere near.

Yeah, I know.

It's like, oh, there's an eclipse in my backyard and I won't be there to see it.

Well, Colorado will get 66%.

Oh, that's not too bad.

I mean, you can see a little bit.

It's not too bad.

So, and this is something keeping in mind, Colorado will have the partial eclipse.

And the farther west you go, the less of a partial eclipse you will get.

So for example, San Francisco, California is only going to get a 35% eclipse.

If you go up to Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, only 17% eclipse.

So they really get much.

Sorry, Vancouver.

Wow.

Yeah.

But yeah, as I say, so this one of the things that people have noted is of course, because it covers such a wide part of North America, you can be many places and see this eclipse. .

We'll be right back.

Welcome back and have we got a story for you today.

Imagine if your resume read 2022 Time Woman of the Year, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and future astronaut.

Impressive, right?

Well, that's the reality for Amanda Wynn.

Peace for Humanity has announced that it is sponsoring Amanda Wynn's dream of becoming an astronaut.

She will be heading to space on a Blue Origin, New Shepard flight as part of the organization's citizen astronaut program.

Amanda is a civil rights activist and founder of Rise and she's known for her work on the Sexual Assault Survivors Rights Act and advocacy for Asian American rights.

She will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space.

Arab director of Space for Humanity, Antonio Peronacci said, "Space for Humanity could not be more proud to team up with and support Amanda Wynn's journey to space.

Amanda's novel voyage will represent a much overdue, shining example to countless others."

We here at T-Minus cannot think of a more deserving recipient of a space flight and know that Amanda will be an incredible inspiration to many around the world.

She also already is.

That's it for T-Minus for March 26, 2024.

For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com.

We're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T-Minus are part of the daily routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, mixing by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music and sound design by Elliot Peltzman.

Our associate producer is Liz Stokes.

Our executive producer is Jen Iben.

Our VP is Brandon Karpf.

And I'm Maria Vremontes.

Thanks for listening.

We'll see you tomorrow.

T-Minus.

T-Minus.

T-Minus.

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