Frequency analysis of the dynamics of high area-to-mass ratios geosynchronous space debris

European Space Agency 1 m telescope in Tenerife (Canary islands) has discovered a new unexpected population of 10 cm size space debris near the geostationary orbit (GEO), sometimes associated to highly eccentric orbits (Schildknecht et al., 2004, 2005). Recent numerical and analytical investigations (Anselmo and Pardini, 2005; Liou and Weaver, 2005) prove that this newly discovered population consists of near geosynchronous objects with high area-to-mass ratios. These objects have a dynamical behavior dominated by the solar radiation pressure: starting with very small eccentricities and inclinations, they can reach very high values after few years. In this paper we develop further the analysis done by Valk et al. (2008) by using a frequency analysis to study both the stability and the resonances patterns of such particular objects.