A bibliometric study of research output of ISRO's space science and exploration missions

Abstract

Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2, the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), and a multi-wavelength astronomical observatory (AstroSat) are the missions launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) under the broader category of space science and exploration. The results generated from the periodically released data from these missions, are published in the form of journal articles, conference papers, The Astronomer's Telegrams, GRB Coordinates Network circulars, etc. The goal of this study is a bibliometric analysis of 592 journal articles on ISRO's four space science and exploration missions which were published between 2002 and 2021 (20 years). The Web of Science Core collection database and Google Scholar are used to retrieve the data needed for the study. Bibliometric indicators like mission-wise distribution of articles; year-wise distribution of articles, relative growth rate and doubling time of publications; prolific authors; leading institutions; international collaboration; highly ranked journals; highly cited articles and keyword occurrences were considered for analysis. The doubling time of publications of those missions which yielded the highest number of articles were separately calculated using an exponential equation and built in algorithms in Python. Advanced data visualization tool such as VosViewer was used for generating the network maps. The bibliometric analysis revealed the usage of mission output data not only by ISRO scientists but also by academia, research labs, etc. Overall, the study can be considered as a comprehensive reference source for information on research trends related to the four Indian space science and exploration missions.