“…To date, different flavors of ionospheric data assimilation schemes have been developed and used in ionospheric studies and characterization. Examples of data assimilation schemes include Kalman filter (Lee et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2015;Scherliess et al, 2004Scherliess et al, , 2006Schunk et al, 2004;Thompson et al, 2006;Yue, Wan, Liu, Zheng, et al, 2007;Yue et al, 2011Yue et al, , 2012, optimal interpolation (Gerzen et al, 2015), a three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) (Aa et al, 2016;Bust et al, 2001Bust et al, , 2004Bust et al, , 2007Bust & Datta-Barua, 2014), and four-dimensional variational (4D-Var, Pi et al, 2003;Ssessanga et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2004). Some of the matured data assimilation schemes have been tested and analyzed to the extent of being included in operational services: Utah State University (USU) Global Assimilation of Ionospheric Measurements (USU-GAIM) algorithm, University of Southern California and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Global Assimilative Ionospheric Model (GAIM), and Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin Ionospheric Data Assimilation Four-Dimensional (IDA4D) algorithm (e.g., Bust et al, 2004Bust et al, , 2007Bust & Datta-Barua, 2014;McNamara et al, 2011;Schunk et al, 2003Schunk et al, , 2016Thompson et al, 2006).…”