Heliophysics

Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer-1 (MinXSS-1)

Orbiter · Competed · PI-led · Launched on December 6, 2015 · Completed · LCC: $1.6M/$2.1M (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 MinXSS-1, papers published June 1, 2016 to June 1, 2019. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For MinXSS-1, 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. Methods11
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods232
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. Methods8
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. Methods11
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. Methods0.8
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. Methods1.2
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. Methods124

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 (11)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. The Instruments and Capabilities of the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSats

    Moore, Christopher S., 2018, SoPh

    59 lifetime citations

  2. New Solar Irradiance Measurements from the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat

    Woods, Thomas N., 2017, ApJ

    50 lifetime citations

  3. MinXSS-1 CubeSat On-Orbit Pointing and Power Performance: The First Flight of the Blue Canyon Technologies XACT 3-axis Attitude Determination and Control System

    Mason, James Paul, 2017, JSSat

    27 lifetime citations

  4. Study of Time Evolution of Thermal and Nonthermal Emission from an M-class Solar Flare

    Nagasawa, Shunsaku, 2022, ApJ

    21 lifetime citations

  5. Simulating Solar Flare Irradiance with Multithreaded Models of Flare Arcades

    Reep, Jeffrey W., 2020, ApJ

    20 lifetime citations

  6. Estimations of Elemental Abundances during Solar Flares Observed in Soft X-Rays by the MinXSS-1 CubeSat Mission

    Suarez, Crisel, 2023, ApJ

    15 lifetime citations

  7. CubeSat On-Orbit Temperature Comparison to Thermal-Balance-Tuned-Model Predictions

    Mason, James Paul, 2017, JTHT

    14 lifetime citations

  8. Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies

    Mason, James Paul, 2023, ApJ

    14 lifetime citations

  9. Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) X-Ray Photometer System (XPS): Final Data-Processing Algorithms

    Woods, Thomas N., 2022, SoPh

    7 lifetime citations

  10. Modeling the Daily Variations of the Coronal X-ray Spectral Irradiance with Two Temperatures and Two Emission Measures

    Schwab, Bennet D., 2023, ApJ

    4 lifetime citations

  11. Disentangling Thermal and Abundance Characteristics in a Solar Flare Using SDO/AIA, Hinode/XRT, and MinXSS-1 Observations

    Xie, Xiaoyan, 2025, ApJ

    1 lifetime citation

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming MinXSS-1 in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

((((abs:minXSS AND abs:(solar OR "X-ray")) OR =abs:"Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer") AND NOT abs:(DAXSS OR "MinXSS-3" OR INSPIRESat))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2016-06 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

Added after review (1)

  1. Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies Uses MinXSS-1 flare spectra to check flare energies; credits the mission only in acknowledgements. Decision 🤖

Removed after review (1)

  1. MinXSS-2 CubeSat mission overview: Improvements from the successful MinXSS-1 mission Overview of the follow-on MinXSS-2 mission; names MinXSS-1 as its predecessor. Decision 🤖