With few exceptions, orbital space launches occur at the top of the minute. The exception to this occurrence is if a rocket supports an interplanetary mission and the orbital mechanics need to be more precise. All commercial, civil, and national security launches require a Launch Collision Avoidance analysis or L-COLA to ensure the rocket and payload do not run into an orbiting satellites, piece of debris, or space station. As the number of satellites, pieces of debris, and space stations increases, fewer opportunities exist to launch safely. This problem is going to get worse!
The Space Force currently provides L-COLA free of charge to all commercial customers but with a caveat. The application that the Space Force is using to conduct this analysis was developed in 1979 and is unable to handle the large number of orbiting objects. As a result, they only run the analysis at the “top of the minute.” In other words, for every 60-minute launch window, the commercial launch operator only has 60 chances to get to orbit.
Launch On Demand can conduct L-COLA analysis “on the second,” which provides launch operators maximum flexibility to launch when the conditions are safe rather than on the arbitrary top of the minute. In other words, with the same 60-minute launch window, Launch On Demand can provide 3600 launch opportunities.
Contact me and schedule an L-COLA demonstration that allows you to launch according to mission parameters!
