Abstract:
The existing Launch Collision Avoidance (LCOLA) screening process is dangerously outmoded, omits real collision threats that introduce unquantified risks, and unnecessarily eliminates launch window opportunities. An improved LCOLA analysis capability has been developed to address those deficiencies. It does so by assessing the underlying topography of the launch closure problem to identify and characterize all launch holds within the user-specified launch window rapidly and accurately (to within approximately10 milliseconds on launch closure times) without confining the launch operator to “top-of-the-minute” or other such constructs. This LCOLA capability avoids the pitfalls of the typical “digitized” or “snapshot” launch window screening approach, where launch objects are compared against the on-orbit catalogue at a small launch “T-zero” step size. This improved capability can detect launch closure holds based upon miss distance, collision probability, or both. Additionally, prior to the probability calculation, each covariance is tested for positive definiteness and remediated if necessary. The tool’s support for parallel processing, combined with its algorithmic efficiency, allow it to process all deployed objects and then aggregate all resulting launch holds into a concise report for the launch director and team.
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Catledge, B., Oltrogge, D.L., Alfano, S., and Gist, R. , “Addressing unaddressed launch risk with a topology-based LCOLA approach,” International Astronautical Congress, Sydney, Australia, 30 Sep 2025.
