Red-team finding closed to first cut: NM sky statistics × DoD Laser Clearinghouse (LCH) windows → a flyable-days fraction feeding the cadence economics. Epistemic tiers per house convention: climate data and LCH-published statistics [E]; every transfer of those numbers to the launch context, and every usability factor, [I]. Model is deliberately conservative-simple; refinement paths listed at the end.
A System B launch requires, simultaneously: (a) cloud-free line of sight on the vertical beam path for the 462 s burn, (b) winds within track/vehicle limits, (c) an open LCH deconfliction window covering the shot. The gun (System A) faces none of these — the all-weather hedge from the red-team register is quantified below.
Albuquerque climate normals: 167 clear days + 111 partly-cloudy days = 278 days/yr with sun; 76% of possible sunshine (Roswell 74%, statewide similar). The vertical beam needs a cloud-free column for only ~8 minutes, not a clear day: on partly-cloudy days (40–70% cover), short launch windows through gaps are largely schedulable against satellite imagery.
Sky-gate model [I]: clear days count 1.0; partly-cloudy days count 0.7 (schedulable-window assumption); overcast days count 0. Sky availability ≈ (167 + 0.7 × 111)/365 = 0.67 — band 0.60–0.75 depending on the partly-cloudy usability assumption (0.5–0.9).
NM spring (Mar–May) brings sustained high-wind days; the constraint binds on vehicle ascent dispersion and track-exit operations, not the beam itself. Placeholder derate ×0.92 (≈30 lost days/yr, concentrated in spring), pending the NWS ABQ high-wind climatology pull in v1. Correlation note: high-wind and overcast days partially overlap (frontal passages), so multiplying is conservative.
Process [E]: sky-directed beams above threshold require LCH deconfliction (DoDI 3100.11). Requests go in 3–30 days before laser activity; LCH returns Program Approval Messages (PAMs) defining open firing windows by pointing direction and time.
Published closure burden (astronomy, the best public dataset) [E]: for a 2025-era analysis of observatory laser operations, median open time was 74–90% for 300 s windows, collapsing to 10–35% for 1,800 s windows, and 96% for 1 s — closures are frequent-but-short, so long continuous windows are exponentially harder to find than brief ones. Open time has declined steadily since ~2016 as constellations grow; a 2022 SpaceX waiver (Starlink tolerates illumination) gave partial relief.
Transfer to the launch case [I], three structural differences, all favorable:
Structural risk running the other way: relay-mirror illumination is itself an LCH matter (we are deliberately lasing a spacecraft — ours), and the declining-open-time trend is adverse. Mitigations: negotiated standing PAM for the fixed corridor; operator-waiver agreements with constellation owners (Starlink precedent); Spaceport America/WSMR restricted-airspace umbrella, which the range plan already selects for exactly this reason.
Flyable-day fraction = Sky × Wind × LCH-day ≈ 0.67 × 0.92 × 0.90 ≈ 0.55 → ~200 flyable days/yr (band: 150–250). Per-shot slot availability within a flyable day ≈ 0.55–0.80 (LCH interpolation) — relevant only once daily cadence exceeds ~2–3 shots.
| Flight rate target | Required shots per flyable day (200 d/yr) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 100/yr (Falcon-parity $3,800/kg) | 0.5 | Trivial — availability is not the binding constraint |
| 500/yr ($870/kg) | 2.5 | Comfortable; 5 h recharge cycle supports ~3/day |
| 2,000/yr ($323/kg) | 10 | Binding. Requires either grid feed >25 MW (recharge), second beam line, or accepting LCH slot losses at ~10 shots/day. The $323/kg figure inherits this availability assumption — flag in item 22’s uncertainty pass |
Portfolio consequence (red-team hedge, now numeric): the gun’s all-weather cadence backfills every lost beam day for water/bulk manifests — beamed-line availability caps delicate-cargo rate, not program mass throughput. The low-demand doctrine (water-slug dummy shots) is unaffected.
Hour-resolved cloud data (NSRDB/ASOS for the actual 2 km site, not ABQ airport) replacing day-counting; NWS high-wind climatology with seasonal correlation; LCH engagement: request an exploratory dialogue on standing-corridor PAMs (cost ≈ $0, information ≈ high); model closure arrival process explicitly (window-length distribution, not day-level probability); couple to the battery-recharge scheduler for >3 shots/day regimes.
Sources: NM annual sunshine days · LCH Reports Handbook · Laser-satellite deconfliction analysis (arXiv 2606.25238) · DoDI 3100.11 · JSpOC laser deconfliction · NWS ABQ high-wind climatology