Earth Science

Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS)

Orbiter · Competed · PI-led · Launched on December 15, 2016 · Extended Mission · LCC: $157M/$212M (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For CYGNSS, papers published January 1, 2017 to January 1, 2024. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For CYGNSS, papers published from 2017 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods490
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods8,414
Citation indices
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. Methods46
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. Methods71
m-indexm-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; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods4.6
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): 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. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods35
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. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods589

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (490)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. Soil Moisture Sensing Using Spaceborne GNSS Reflections: Comparison of CYGNSS Reflectivity to SMAP Soil Moisture

    Chew, C. C., 2018, GeoRL

    283 lifetime citations

  2. Analysis of CYGNSS Data for Soil Moisture Retrieval

    Clarizia, Maria Paola, 2019, IJSTA

    217 lifetime citations

  3. A New Paradigm in Earth Environmental Monitoring with the CYGNSS Small Satellite Constellation

    Ruf, Christopher S., 2018, NatSR

    202 lifetime citations

  4. Time-Series Retrieval of Soil Moisture Using CYGNSS

    Al-Khaldi, Mohammad M., 2019, ITGRS

    188 lifetime citations

  5. Use of Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CyGNSS) Observations for Estimation of Soil Moisture

    Kim, Hyunglok, 2018, GeoRL

    175 lifetime citations

  6. High Spatio-Temporal Resolution CYGNSS Soil Moisture Estimates Using Artificial Neural Networks

    Eroglu, Orhan, 2019, RemS

    155 lifetime citations

  7. Development of the CYGNSS Geophysical Model Function for Wind Speed

    Ruf, Christopher S., 2019, IJSTA

    145 lifetime citations

  8. Description of the UCAR/CU Soil Moisture Product

    Chew, Clara, 2020, RemS

    138 lifetime citations

  9. Pan-tropical soil moisture mapping based on a three-layer model from CYGNSS GNSS-R data

    Yan, Qingyun, 2020, RSEnv

    137 lifetime citations

  10. Assessment of Spaceborne GNSS-R Ocean Altimetry Performance Using CYGNSS Mission Raw Data

    Li, Weiqiang, 2020, ITGRS

    125 lifetime citations

  11. CYGNSS data map flood inundation during the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season

    Chew, Clara, 2018, NatSR

    123 lifetime citations

  12. Assessment of CYGNSS Wind Speed Retrieval Uncertainty

    Ruf, Christopher S., 2019, IJSTA

    111 lifetime citations

  13. Machine Learning-Based CYGNSS Soil Moisture Estimates over ISMN sites in CONUS

    Senyurek, Volkan, 2020, RemS

    107 lifetime citations

  14. In-Orbit Performance of the Constellation of CYGNSS Hurricane Satellites

    Ruf, Christopher, 2019, BAMS

    104 lifetime citations

  15. The CYGNSS Level 1 Calibration Algorithm and Error Analysis Based on On-Orbit Measurements

    Gleason, Scott, 2019, IJSTA

    102 lifetime citations

  16. Above-Ground Biomass Retrieval over Tropical Forests: A Novel GNSS-R Approach with CyGNSS

    Carreno-Luengo, Hugo, 2020, RemS

    87 lifetime citations

  17. A Semiempirical Modeling of Soil Moisture, Vegetation, and Surface Roughness Impact on CYGNSS Reflectometry Data

    Yueh, Simon H., 2022, ITGRS

    83 lifetime citations

  18. Application of Neural Network to GNSS-R Wind Speed Retrieval

    Liu, Yunxiang, 2019, ITGRS

    81 lifetime citations

  19. A novel approach to monitoring wetland dynamics using CYGNSS: Everglades case study

    Morris, Mary, 2019, RSEnv

    81 lifetime citations

  20. Lake Level and Surface Topography Measured With Spaceborne GNSS-Reflectometry From CYGNSS Mission: Example for the Lake Qinghai

    Li, Weiqiang, 2018, GeoRL

    77 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming CYGNSS in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

((=abs:"Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System" OR (abs:CYGNSS AND (abs:satellite OR abs:GNSS OR abs:reflectometry OR abs:wind OR abs:soil OR abs:ocean OR abs:surface OR abs:data OR abs:retrieval OR abs:observations OR abs:cyclone OR abs:land OR abs:simulator OR abs:constellation OR abs:flood)) OR ((=abs:"Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument" OR abs:DDMI) AND (abs:CYGNSS OR abs:GNSS OR abs:reflectometry)))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2017-01 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Removed after review (1)

  1. On the Constellation Design of Multi-GNSS Reflectometry Mission Using the Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm Design study for proposed follow-on reflectometry constellations; uses no CYGNSS data. Decision 🤖