Evolution of the orbital elements for objects with high area-to-mass ratios in geostationary transfer orbits

As opposed to GEO objects, only one GTO object with high A/M has been identified so far. Nevertheless, more such objects probably exist. Simulations were performed in order to study the orbital evolution of GTO objects with high A/M. The objective was on the one hand to find a possible explanation why only one GTO object with a high A/M has been observed so far, and on the other hand to propose suitable search patterns. The A/M values were assumed to vary from 1 to 20 m2/kg in our simulations. The semi-major axis a and the eccentricity e of GTO objects have a correlated decrease (in the sense that a(1 − e) ≈ const.) with time caused by the air drag, leading to a characteristic line in the (a,e)-diagram. Thus, the initial values of the semi-major axis and the eccentricity were randomly selected along this line. In addition to the evolution of the orbital elements, the dependency of the lifetime on the A/M value was also studied.