Frontiers in Space Technologies

Frontiers in Space Technologies is a gold open access journal that Frontiers launched in 2020 for the engineering, physics and policy of operating in space, and its 2025 Journal Impact Factor is 2.4.《空间技术前沿》是一份金色开放获取期刊，由 Frontiers 于 2020 年创办，覆盖在太空中开展活动所涉及的工程、物理与政策问题，2025 年期刊影响因子为 2.4。

Every article carries an article number rather than a page range, because the journal publishes continuously and assembles no issues, so a volume simply gathers whatever appeared during its year.每篇文章只带文章编号而不标页码，因为刊物连续出版、不汇编期号，一卷就是把那一年上线的文章拢在一起。

Scope

• The remit is the technology of spaceflight and of the near-Earth environment it passes through, treated as an engineering subject with a strong applied bias rather than as a branch of astronomy.收稿范围是航天技术以及航天器所穿越的近地环境，按一门应用色彩很重的工程学科来处理，而不当作天文学的分支。
• Advanced Space Engineering covers the design and integration of spacecraft systems, from structures, thermal control and power architectures to the qualification campaigns that decide whether a design survives launch.先进空间工程涵盖航天器系统的设计与集成，从结构、热控与电源架构，到决定设计能否经受发射的鉴定试验流程。
• Aerial and Space Networks takes in communications, constellations, delay-tolerant protocols and the ground segments that keep a link alive when a spacecraft is out of sight for most of its orbit.空中与空间网络涵盖通信、星座组网、容迟协议，以及在地面维持链路的地面段，航天器在一个轨道周期里大半时间并不在视线之内。
• Microgravity handles what changes when gravity is removed, whether the subject is fluid behaviour, combustion, crystal growth or the physiology of cells and plants carried on orbital platforms.微重力方向处理失重之后发生变化的现象，对象既可以是流体行为、燃烧与晶体生长，也可以是轨道平台上搭载的细胞与植物生理。
• Space Debris treats the orbital population as an engineering hazard, covering detection and tracking, collision avoidance, re-entry prediction and the removal concepts still at demonstration stage.空间碎片把轨道上的人造物体当成工程威胁来处理，涉及探测与跟踪、碰撞规避、再入预报，以及仍处在演示阶段的清除方案。
• Space Economy works on the commercial side, from launch pricing and satellite servicing business models to the regulatory questions that follow when private operators run infrastructure once built by states.空间经济处理商业一侧，从发射定价与卫星服务商业模式，到私营运营者接手国家基建之后带来的监管问题。
• Space Exploration covers mission architecture, instrumentation and the operational planning that turns a planetary target into a sequence of experiments a spacecraft can actually execute.空间探索涵盖任务架构、仪器设计与运行规划，把一颗行星目标拆解成航天器真能执行的一串实验。
• Space Propulsion ranges from chemical engines and electric thrusters to the in-space transportation concepts that would make refuelling and orbit raising routine rather than exceptional.空间推进从化学发动机与电推进，到在轨运输的各种设想，后者意在让加注与轨道抬升变成常态而不是特例。
• Space Robotics takes in manipulators, rovers, sample-handling mechanisms and the autonomy that lets a machine act on a target when the round-trip light time rules out joystick control.空间机器人涵盖机械臂、巡视器与样品处理机构，也涵盖自主能力，因为往返光时太长，操纵杆式遥控在这些场景里行不通。
• Materials and manufacturing appear throughout the sections, since a structure that must survive vacuum, thermal cycling and atomic oxygen is a materials problem before it is a design problem.材料与制造贯穿各个分栏，因为要经受真空、热循环与原子氧的结构，先是一道材料难题，然后才是设计难题。
• Autonomy and onboard computation carry their own weight, from hazard detection during landing to scheduling that lets a platform replan when a downlink window closes earlier than planned.自主与星上计算自有一份分量，从着陆过程中的危险探测，到下行窗口提前关闭时让平台重新排程的能力。
• Sustainability runs as a cross-cutting concern, covering in-orbit servicing, active debris removal, end-of-life disposal and the design choices that make a satellite retrievable at all.可持续性作为横贯议题存在，涉及在轨服务、主动碎片清除、寿命末期处置，以及让卫星还能被回收的那些设计选择。
• Papers mix experiment, simulation and field data, and a study of a subsystem is expected to say how it was tested, whether in a thermal vacuum chamber, a drop tower or on orbit.论文把实验、仿真与实测数据混在一起，针对某个分系统的研究要交代它是怎么被验证的，在热真空罐里、落塔里还是在轨上。
• Policy, law and economics papers are taken when they bear on a technical decision, such as spectrum allocation, export control or the licensing that governs a remote-sensing constellation.政策、法律与经济学论文只要落在技术决策上就收，比如频谱分配、出口管制，或者管辖遥感星座的执照规则。

History

• The journal opened in 2020 with a first volume of five articles, issued from Lausanne by Frontiers Media, the Swiss publisher that had built its list on community-run open access titles.刊物 2020 年创刊，第 1 卷只有 5 篇文章，由瑞士的 Frontiers Media 在洛桑发行，这家出版方此前的刊群都建立在由学者主持的开放获取模式上。
• Its arrival followed a decade in which launch costs fell and private firms took over routine access to orbit, so a journal about the engineering of space systems had a commercial readership it would not have had earlier.它出现之前的十年里，发射成本下降，私营企业接手了常规入轨能力，讨论空间系统工程的刊物因此有了早年不会有的商业读者。
• Volume numbers track the calendar exactly, so volume one is 2020 and volume seven is 2026, and no volume has ever been split or merged across a year boundary.卷号与年份严格对应，第 1 卷是 2020 年，第 7 卷是 2026 年，从未有哪一卷跨年拆开或合并。
• There are no issues at all. A paper appears the moment it is accepted and typeset, receives a number, and joins the volume already in progress, which is why readers cite year, volume and article number.刊物完全没有期号。文章一经接收并排版就上线，领到编号即并入正在进行的那一卷，读者引用时只写年份、卷号与文章编号。
• Output has stayed small: five articles in 2020, twelve in 2021, then a peak of forty-five in 2022, followed by roughly twenty-six to thirty a year in the volumes since.发文量一直不大，2020 年 5 篇，2021 年 12 篇，2022 年达到 45 篇的高点，此后各卷大致每年 26 至 30 篇。
• The section structure filled out as the field did. Eight specialty sections now divide the remit, and each keeps its own editorial team and its own statement of what it will consider.分栏结构随领域一起长齐，如今由 8 个专业分栏分担收稿范围，每栏有自己的编辑班子，也有各自的收稿说明。
• The first impact factor arrived with the 2024 report at 1.3, and the 2025 report raised it to 2.4, a jump that also lifted the five-year figure to 2.3.第一个影响因子来自 2024 年的报告，为 1.3，2025 年报告升到 2.4，五年影响因子也随之站上 2.3。
• Clarivate places it in two categories and both are second quartile, at 42 of 86 in astronomy and astrophysics and 20 of 59 in aerospace engineering, an unusual double placement for a technology title.科睿唯安把它放进两个类目，两者都落在第二四分位，天文学与天体物理 86 种中第 42 位，航空航天工程 59 种中第 20 位，对一份技术类刊物来说这种双栖并不多见。
• Citation volume remains modest in absolute terms, with 258 citations counted in the 2025 window, a cited half-life of 2.9 years and 19 citable items recorded for the year.绝对被引量仍然有限，2025 年被引窗口统计到 258 次，被引半衰期 2.9 年，当年计入的可被引文献 19 篇。
• Nothing has ever sat behind a paywall. The journal is gold open access from its first article, with the article processing charge paid by authors or their institutions and no subscription route at all.从来没有内容放在付费墙后面。刊物自第一篇文章起就是金色开放获取，文章处理费由作者或其机构承担，完全没有订阅通道。
• It is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals and indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index, and PubMed carries selected citations only, which matters to the microgravity papers that touch on human physiology.它在开放获取期刊目录中登记，被新兴来源引文索引收录，PubMed 只记部分引用，这一点对涉及人体生理的微重力论文有实际影响。
• The journal has never been renamed and carries no print edition, so the electronic ISSN 2673-5075 is the only serial number it has ever had.刊名从未改动，也没有印本，电子刊号 2673-5075 是它历来唯一的刊号。
• Because the publisher's platform hosts hundreds of titles under one workflow, the submission system, the review interface and the production chain here are the same ones used across the Frontiers list.由于出版方在一套流程下托管着数百种刊物，这里的投稿系统、评审界面与生产链条与 Frontiers 整个刊群用的是同一套。

Editors

• Guglielmo S. Aglietti of the University of Auckland is the field chief editor, the post that sits above the specialty sections and answers for the journal as a whole.Guglielmo S. Aglietti 是领域主编，任职于奥克兰大学，这个位置在专业分栏之上，对整份刊物负责。
• Below him each specialty section runs its own chief editor and a panel of associate editors, and that panel decides which submissions fall inside the section's stated subject.他之下每个专业分栏另设主编与一组副编辑，由这组人判定哪些稿件落在本栏声明的主题之内。
• A paper is assigned to a handling editor on arrival, and that editor invites the reviewers and stays with the manuscript until a decision is reached, so the file never passes through an anonymous central desk.稿件一到就分配给一位负责编辑，由他邀请审稿人并一路跟到决定作出，稿件因此不经过匿名的中间台。
• Review here is interactive rather than sealed. Referee reports and the authors' replies are published alongside the accepted article, and readers can follow how a claim was argued down or defended.这里的评审是互动式的，而非封闭进行。审稿意见与作者的答复随录用文章一并公开，读者能看到一条论断是怎样被压下去或被守住的。
• Reviewers are named on the published paper, which is the publisher's standing policy across its list, and the exchange remains on the record as part of the article's history.审稿人的姓名会印在发表后的文章上，这是出版方在整个刊群里的既定政策，往来意见作为文章历史的一部分留在记录中。
• Because no subscription income exists, the article processing charge is what funds editing, review coordination and typesetting, and the charge is stated before submission rather than negotiated afterwards.由于没有订阅收入，编辑、评审协调与排版都由文章处理费支撑，费用在投稿前就写明，不在事后议价。
• Research Topics let a group of guest editors assemble a collection around one question, from re-entry materials to lunar surface operations, and papers in a collection keep their own article numbers.研究专题让一组客座编辑围绕一个问题集结成集，从再入材料到月面作业都有，集内文章各自保留自己的编号。
• The section chief editors carry the fit decision, which is why a paper on, say, space law reaches an editor who works on the economics and policy side rather than one who builds hardware.稿件是否对口由各分栏主编判断，因此一篇空间法论文会送到做经济与政策一侧的编辑手上，而不是送到造硬件的人那里。
• Authors may suggest reviewers, and the handling editor decides whether to use them after checking for conflicts, a step that matters in a field where a handful of laboratories dominate a sub-area.作者可以推荐审稿人，负责编辑在排查利益冲突之后决定用不用，这一步在一个由少数实验室主导的细分领域里尤其要紧。
• Every accepted paper carries author contributions, competing-interest statements and a data availability declaration, and the journal will not publish a study whose data cannot be shared without a stated reason.每篇录用文章都带作者贡献、利益冲突声明与数据可得性声明，拿不出数据又给不出理由的研究，刊物不予发表。
• The editorial board spans Europe, North America and Asia, with spacecraft engineering in Auckland, debris work in Europe and constellation research in East Asia among the areas represented.编委分布在欧洲、北美与亚洲，奥克兰的航天器工程、欧洲的碎片研究、东亚的星座研究都在其中有代表。