Astrophysics

TESS

3,535 tracked publications and 62,156 citations from 2018–2026. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Launched 2018. Life-cycle cost: $387M in 2025 dollars. Active Mission Window August 1, 2018 to January 1, 2024: 1,864 publications, 184 top-10% credit.

Survey Observatory · h-index 88 · 66 papers with 100+ citations · prime mission ended 2020

Lifetime

Scope Papers published from the first full month after science operations begin through 2 years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. Methods Papers published from the first full month after science operations begin through 2 years after the prime mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. Methods Every tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. Methods

Key measures

Active Mission Window · papers August 1, 2018 to January 1, 2024
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed research papers we found for the mission. The list may not be complete. Methods1,864
CitationsCitations received by the tracked publications in the selected scope. The two windowed scopes count each paper’s citations only within its citation window. Methods35,427
Mean citations per publicationMean citations: total citations divided by tracked publications in the selected scope. One blockbuster paper can lift it. Methods19
Median citations per publicationMedian citations: the middle paper’s citation count in the selected scope; half the papers have more, half fewer. A single blockbuster sways it less than the mean. Methods12
Uncited publicationsUncited publications: papers with no citations in the selected scope. Methods107 (5.7%)
Top-10% creditTop 10%: among the 10% most-cited papers from this division’s missions, ranked against papers published around the same time. A paper naming several missions is split evenly among the missions in this division that claim it, so counts can be fractional. Methods184 · 3.7% of division
Top-1% creditTop 1%: among the 1% most-cited papers from this division’s missions within the selected window. Not adjusted for publication year. A paper naming several missions is split evenly among the missions in this division that claim it, so counts can be fractional. Methods7.7 · 1.5% of division
Lifetime indices · every tracked publication to date, in any scope
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods88
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods138
m-index, as of October 4, 2026m-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes, so it belongs to the date shown; it also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods9.8
toritori (total research impact, from ADS): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Methods114
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Methods1,065

Tracked publications

  1. The Revised TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List

    Stassun, Keivan G., 2019, AJ

    1,126 citations

  2. The TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List

    Stassun, Keivan G., 2018, AJ

    725 citations

  3. The GALAH+ survey: Third data release

    Buder, Sven, 2021, MNRAS

    670 citations

  4. A Framework for Prioritizing the TESS Planetary Candidates Most Amenable to Atmospheric Characterization

    Kempton, Eliza M.-R., 2018, PASP

    592 citations

  5. The TESS Objects of Interest Catalog from the TESS Prime Mission

    Guerrero, Natalia M., 2021, ApJS

    432 citations

  6. Stellar Flares from the First TESS Data Release: Exploring a New Sample of M Dwarfs

    Günther, Maximilian N., 2020, AJ

    376 citations

  7. The Eighteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: Targeting and First Spectra from SDSS-V

    Almeida, Andrés, 2023, ApJS

    326 citations

  8. Angular Momentum Transport in Stellar Interiors

    Aerts, Conny, 2019, ARA&A

    319 citations

  9. A Revised Exoplanet Yield from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

    Barclay, Thomas, 2018, ApJS

    277 citations

  10. Optimized transit detection algorithm to search for periodic transits of small planets

    Hippke, Michael, 2019, A&A

    267 citations

  11. Planetary nebulae seen with TESS: Discovery of new binary central star candidates from Cycle 1

    Aller, A., 2020, A&A

    267 citations

  12. eleanor: An Open-source Tool for Extracting Light Curves from the TESS Full-frame Images

    Feinstein, Adina D., 2019, PASP

    260 citations

  13. Wōtan: Comprehensive Time-series Detrending in Python

    Hippke, Michael, 2019, AJ

    254 citations

  14. SOAR TESS Survey. I. Sculpting of TESS Planetary Systems by Stellar Companions

    Ziegler, Carl, 2020, AJ

    250 citations

  15. TESS Eclipsing Binary Stars. I. Short-cadence Observations of 4584 Eclipsing Binaries in Sectors 1-26

    Prša, Andrej, 2022, ApJS

    228 citations

  16. TESS Discovery of a Transiting Super-Earth in the pi Mensae System

    Huang, Chelsea X., 2018, ApJ

    184 citations

  17. Evolution of the Radius Valley around Low-mass Stars from Kepler and K2

    Cloutier, Ryan, 2020, AJ

    184 citations

  18. The Hubble Space Telescope PanCET Program: Exospheric Mg II and Fe II in the Near-ultraviolet Transmission Spectrum of WASP-121b Using Jitter Decorrelation

    Sing, David K., 2019, AJ

    183 citations

  19. Vetting of 384 TESS Objects of Interest with TRICERATOPS and Statistical Validation of 12 Planet Candidates

    Giacalone, Steven, 2021, AJ

    182 citations

  20. CARMENES input catalogue of M dwarfs. V. Luminosities, colours, and spectral energy distributions

    Cifuentes, C., 2020, A&A

    181 citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) for peer-reviewed articles naming TESS in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces. SciX is ADS’s current interface.

((=abs:"Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite" OR (abs:TESS AND abs:(mission OR satellite OR spacecraft OR catalog OR exoplanet OR planet OR star OR stellar OR photometry OR photometric OR asteroseismology OR transit OR pulsation OR binary OR supernova OR galaxy OR asteroid OR comet OR Jupiter)) OR facility:TESS)) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2018-08 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "AIASJ" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NewSc" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Removed after review (8)

  1. Demonstration of Athena X-IFU Compatible 40-Row Time-Division-Multiplexed Readout Detector readout for Athena; "TES" means transition-edge sensor, not the TESS mission. Decision 🤖
  2. Observation of nontrivial Zak phase induced topological states in glow discharge plasma Plasma photonics; "TESs" means topological edge states, not the TESS mission. Decision 🤖
  3. Benchmark forward gravity schemes: the gravity field of a realistic lithosphere model WINTERC-G Gravity modelling; "TESS" is a tesseroid integration code, not the mission. Decision 🤖
  4. High-order harmonic generation in uniformly distributed topological edge states Optics paper; "TESs" means topological edge states, not the TESS mission. Decision 🤖
  5. MuSCAT2: four-color simultaneous camera for the 1.52-m Telescopio Carlos Sánchez Instrument description of the ground-based MuSCAT2 camera; reports no TESS results. Decision 🤖
  6. Absolute Radiometric Calibration of TESS-W and SQM Night Sky Brightness Sensors Calibration of the ground-based TESS-W sky-brightness sensor, not the TESS mission. Decision 🤖
  7. TESS: The Little Satellite with a Big Job Magazine feature about the mission; not a research paper. Decision 🤖
  8. 2022MNRAS.513.2719V Stellar-parameter fitting software; TESS is not named in the title or abstract. Decision 🤖