Anti-Ballistic Missile Laser Predictive Avoidance of Satellites: Theory and Software for Real- Time Processing and Deconfliction of Satellite Ephemerides With a Moving Platform Laser, Book 2

The Anti-Ballistic missile Laser ABL project is committed to defense against attack from enemy-launched missiles using an airborne laser platform. Wielding a laser of this scope requires that collateral satellites be protected from accidental illumination during operational use. The Predictive Avoidance algorithm is designed to predict the path of a given laser firing sequence, and perform real-time deconfliction with the ephemerides of a given set of satellites. This thesis establishes the theoretical framework of this algorithm, and develops a modular software package that can be incorporated into the fire-control system of ABL to perform real-time forecasting within given time and error budgets.