Point-Ahead Aiming for Deep-Space Laser Links (2D)

A 2D companion to the 3D point-ahead demo, built from an independent orbital-geometry model: a receiver moves on a real circular orbit, and every pulse cycle the simulator computes its exact position and velocity, the one-way light time to it, the line-of-sight-transverse component of its velocity, and the resulting point-ahead angle from first principles — then extrapolates a real predicted future position (current position plus velocity times light time) rather than using a canned offset. It launches a beam at either the receiver's naive current position or its point-ahead-corrected predicted position, lets the receiver continue on its exact orbit for the true light-travel time, and checks live whether the beam's aim point actually falls inside the receiver's diffraction-limited footprint when it arrives — the same targeting problem NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications demonstration solves onboard.