Planetary Science

Dawn

Orbiter · Competed · PI-led · Launched on September 27, 2007 · Completed · LCC: $512M/$883M (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 Dawn, papers published August 1, 2011 to November 1, 2020. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For Dawn, papers published from 2011 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. Methods422
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods13,711
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. Methods59
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. Methods94
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. Methods3.7
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. Methods41
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. Methods378

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 (422)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. Dawn at Vesta: Testing the Protoplanetary Paradigm

    Russell, C. T., 2012, Sci

    458 lifetime citations

  2. The Dawn Framing Camera

    Sierks, H., 2011, SSRv

    282 lifetime citations

  3. Spectroscopic Characterization of Mineralogy and Its Diversity Across Vesta

    De Sanctis, M. C., 2012, Sci

    257 lifetime citations

  4. Elemental Mapping by Dawn Reveals Exogenic H in Vesta’s Regolith

    Prettyman, Thomas H., 2012, Sci

    219 lifetime citations

  5. The Violent Collisional History of Asteroid 4 Vesta

    Marchi, S., 2012, Sci

    217 lifetime citations

  6. The Dawn Mission to Vesta and Ceres

    Russell, C. T., 2011, SSRv

    213 lifetime citations

  7. Vesta’s Shape and Morphology

    Jaumann, R., 2012, Sci

    212 lifetime citations

  8. Dawn arrives at Ceres: Exploration of a small, volatile-rich world

    Russell, C. T., 2016, Sci

    189 lifetime citations

  9. The Geologically Recent Giant Impact Basins at Vesta’s South Pole

    Schenk, Paul, 2012, Sci

    185 lifetime citations

  10. Dawn; the Vesta-HED connection; and the geologic context for eucrites, diogenites, and howardites

    McSween, Harry Y., 2013, M&PS

    184 lifetime citations

  11. A partially differentiated interior for (1) Ceres deduced from its gravity field and shape

    Park, R. S., 2016, Natur

    184 lifetime citations

  12. Dawn's Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector

    Prettyman, Thomas H., 2011, SSRv

    178 lifetime citations

  13. Delivery of dark material to Vesta via carbonaceous chondritic impacts

    Reddy, Vishnu, 2012, Icar

    165 lifetime citations

  14. Color and Albedo Heterogeneity of Vesta from Dawn

    Reddy, Vishnu, 2012, Sci

    165 lifetime citations

  15. Extensive water ice within Ceres’ aqueously altered regolith: Evidence from nuclear spectroscopy

    Prettyman, T. H., 2017, Sci

    164 lifetime citations

  16. Localized aliphatic organic material on the surface of Ceres

    De Sanctis, M. C., 2017, Sci

    156 lifetime citations

  17. Distribution of phyllosilicates on the surface of Ceres

    Ammannito, E., 2016, Sci

    152 lifetime citations

  18. The origin of eucrites, diogenites, and olivine diogenites: Magma ocean crystallization and shallow magma chamber processes on Vesta

    Mandler, Ben E., 2013, M&PS

    140 lifetime citations

  19. Cryovolcanism on Ceres

    Ruesch, O., 2016, Sci

    139 lifetime citations

  20. Detection of Widespread Hydrated Materials on Vesta by the VIR Imaging Spectrometer on board the Dawn Mission

    De Sanctis, M. C., 2012, ApJ

    125 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

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

((=abs:"Dawn mission" OR =abs:"Dawn spacecraft" OR ((=abs:Dawn OR abs:VIR) AND (abs:Vesta OR abs:Ceres)))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2011-08 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 (12)

  1. 2011SSRv..163....1R Foreword to a journal special issue; not a research paper. Decision 🤖
  2. Vesta and Ceres: Crossing the History of the Solar System Review of Solar System history; mentions Dawn only as a future source of data. Decision 🤖
  3. The Origin and Evolution of the Asteroid Belt—Implications for Vesta and Ceres Review of asteroid belt evolution; mentions Dawn only as a future source of data. Decision 🤖
  4. Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta Review of Vesta's interior from meteorites; mentions Dawn only as a future source of data. Decision 🤖
  5. The Surface Composition of Ceres Review of earlier observations of Ceres' surface; uses no Dawn data. Decision 🤖
  6. HED Meteorites and Their Relationship to the Geology of Vesta and the Dawn Mission Review of HED meteorites; mentions Dawn only as a future user of them. Decision 🤖
  7. The Education and Public Outreach Program for NASA's Dawn Mission Describes Dawn's education and public outreach program; not a research paper. Decision 🤖
  8. Seven days: 6-12 March 2015 Nature weekly news roundup; a news item, not research. Decision 🤖
  9. Bright spots on Ceres could be active ice Nature staff news article reporting mission results; a news item, not research. Decision 🤖
  10. Dawn probe to look for a habitable ocean on Ceres Science staff news article reporting mission results; a news item, not research. Decision 🤖
  11. Dawn explores the dwarf planet Ceres Science editors' one-paragraph summary of a published paper; a news item, not research. Decision 🤖
  12. NASA's asteroid explorer Dawn soon to go dark Science staff news article reporting mission results; a news item, not research. Decision 🤖