Visibility of the CryoSat mission in the scientific and technical literature: A bibliometric perspective

CryoSat is the first Earth observation mission launched by ESA with the purpose of observing the Earth's polar ice masses. Six years after the launching of the CryoSat-2 satellite, its outcomes have surpassed the objectives initially planned, and the mission has provided additional insights on aspects like sea level measurement. This paper makes an analysis of the visibility of the CryoSat mission in the scientific and technical literature. The analysis covers two aspects: (a) the quantitative description of the literature generated as a result of the mission's engineering and exploitation, and (b) the influence of this literature on the generation of additional scientific and technical knowledge. Although the generation of explicit, formal knowledge disseminated through journals, conferences and repositories is just one of the multiple benefits of space missions, the quantification of these outputs is relevant to assess the visibility of the mission in the scientific literature.