Founded | January 31, 1963 |
---|---|
Type | Professional Organization |
Origins | Merger of the American Rocket Society and the Institute of the Aerospace Sciences |
Area served | Worldwide |
Method | Industry standards, Conferences, Publications |
Members | 30,000 (2015) |
Key people | John Langford (President) Daniel Dumbacher (Executive Director) |
Revenue | US$21 million (2009) |
Website | www.aiaa.org |
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences. In 2015, it had more than 30,000 members among aerospace professionals worldwide (a majority are American or live in the United States). [1] [2] [3]
The AIAA was founded in 1963 from the merger of two earlier societies: the American Rocket Society (ARS), founded in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society (AIS), and the Institute of the Aerospace Sciences (IAS), founded in 1932 as the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences. Paul Johnston was the first executive director of the organization. Jim Harford took his seat after 18 months. The newly-formed structure gathered 47 technical committees and one broad technical publication, the AIAA Journal. The AIAA Student Journal was also launched in 1963. The merger also led to the sale of the organizations' former headquarter buildings, and the relocation in the Sperry Rand Building. [4]
In 1967, the Technical Committee on Space and Atmospheric Science launched a study to capture the opinion of its members in California on the UFO phenomenon. [5]
In April 2017, John Langford, CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, was elected President of the AIAA. [6]
As a major activity, AIAA currently publishes several technical journals. The AIAA Journal is published on a monthly basis and serves as the flagship journal of the society. In January 2015 the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics became the second AIAA journal published on a monthly basis. The other journals are published bi-monthly and have more specialized topics: [7]
AIAA's flagship magazine Aerospace America was started in 1990 [8] and is distributed monthly to all members, and is published online in digital format. AIAA also produces several series of technical books ranging from education to progress in advanced research topics.
AIAA annually holds design competitions and Design/Build/Fly competitions to provide a real-world design experience for engineering students, both undergraduate and graduate, by giving them the opportunity to validate their analytic studies. [9]
AIAA hosts many conferences and smaller events throughout the year. The largest of those is the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition ("AIAA SciTech"). Others include AIAA Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition ("AIAA Aviation"), AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum and Exposition ("AIAA P&E"), and AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum and Exposition ("AIAA Space"). [10] [11]
AIAA currently has over 6,500 student members in 160 active student branches, including 12 foreign student branches. The student branches host annual conferences.
The AIAA Foundation is devoted to the education of both practicing and future aerospace professionals. The AIAA Foundation funds numerous scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate scholarships range from $2,000 to $2,500. Graduate scholarships are $5,000 or $10,000. [12]
Geoffrey Alan Landis is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He holds nine patents, primarily in the field of improvements to solar cells and photovoltaic devices and has given presentations and commentary on the possibilities for interstellar travel and construction of bases on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
Robert George Jahn was an American plasma physicist, Professor of Aerospace Science, and Dean of Engineering at Princeton University. Jahn was also a founder of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR), a parapsychology research program which ran from 1979 to 2007.
Michimasa Fujino is a retired Japanese aeronautical engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of the Honda Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company. Fujino worked as chief engineer within Honda R&D, then as vice president, before he was named the project leader for HondaJet development. He was also a Honda Motor managing officer. At Honda Aircraft, he played a crucial role in the growth of the company, and was responsible for the overall strategy of its design, development, certification, marketing, sales, and production of the HondaJet.
Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is similar, but deals with the electronics side of aerospace engineering.
Robert David Braun is an American aerospace engineer and academic. He has served as the dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, the David and Andrew Lewis Professor of Space Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the NASA Chief Technologist. Currently, Dr. Braun is the Space Sector Head at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
The AIAA Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It covers all areas of aeronautics and astronautics, particularly with respect to new theoretical and experimental developments. The current editor-in-chief is Tom I-P. Shih from Purdue University. According to the Journal Citation Reports, its 2020 impact factor is 2.127, ranking it 8th out of 34 journals in the category "Engineering, Aerospace".
Dr. Mark J. Lewis is a senior American aerospace and defense executive with special expertise in hypersonics. He is currently the Executive Director of the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies Institute, following his role in the second half of 2020 as the acting US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and before that the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization. He was the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. from 2004 to 2008 and was the longest-serving Chief Scientist in Air Force history. He served as chief scientific adviser to the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force, and provided assessments on a wide range of scientific and technical issues affecting the Air Force mission. In this role he identified and analyzed technical issues and brought them to attention of Air Force leaders, and interacted with other Air Staff principals, operational commanders, combatant commands, acquisition, and science & technology communities to address cross-organizational technical issues and solutions. His primary areas of focus included energy, sustainment, long-range strike technologies, advanced propulsion systems, and workforce development.
John H. McMasters was an aeronautical engineer notable for his contributions to aerodynamics and engineering education.
John L. Junkins is an American academic and a distinguished professor of aerospace engineering in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University specializing in spacecraft navigation, guidance, dynamics, and control. He holds the Royce E. Wisenbaker Endowed Chair at Texas A&M University and also serves as the Founding Director of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University, since its founding in December 2010. On November 24, 2020, Junkins was announced as the interim President of Texas A&M University starting January 2021. He was the interim president until May 31, 2021.
Holt Ashley was an American aeronautical engineer notable for his seminal research on aeroelasticity.
Yvonne Madelaine Brill was a Canadian American rocket and jet propulsion engineer. She is responsible for inventing the Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster (EHT/Resistojet), a fuel-efficient rocket thruster that keeps today’s satellites in orbit, and holds a patent for its invention. During her career she was involved in a broad range of national space programs in the United States, including NASA and the International Maritime Satellite Organization.
Thomas John Mueller is an American aerospace engineer and rocket engine designer. He was a founding employee of SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California, and the founder and CEO of Impulse Space.
Richard "Dick" Horace Battin was an American engineer, applied mathematician and educator who led the design of the Apollo guidance computer during the Apollo missions during the 1960s.
Elaine Surick Oran is an American physical scientist and is considered a world authority on numerical methods for large-scale simulation of physical systems. She has pioneered computational technology to solve complex reactive flow problems, unifying concepts from science, mathematics, engineering, and computer science in a new methodology. An incredibly diverse range of phenomena can be modeled and better understood using her techniques for numerical simulation of fluid flows, ranging from the tightly grouped movements of fish in Earth's oceans to the explosions of far-flung supernovae in space. Her work has contributed significantly to the advancement of the engineering profession.
Prof. Alfred Gessow was an American pioneer in the field of helicopter aerodynamics and aerospace engineering. He was a co-author of the early rotorcraft engineering text Aerodynamics of the Helicopter, which, although published in 1952, has been in print for more than 50 years. Gessow was chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and was ultimately promoted to Professor Emeritus.
Joseph Majdalani is an Lebanese-American professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He began his career at Marquette University, before serving as both the Jack D. Whitfield Professor of High Speed Flows and Arnold Chair of Excellence at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. He then served as the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council Endowed Professor and Chair, and is currently the Hugh and Loeda Francis Chair of Excellence in Aerospace Engineering at Auburn University.
Karen Elizabeth Willcox is an aerospace engineer and computational scientist best known for her work on reduced-order modeling and the study of multi-fidelity methods. She is currently the director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences and professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas.
Mike Gruntman is a physicist, space engineer, and author. He is professor of astronautics and aerospace engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC).
Carlos E. S. Cesnik is a Brazilian-American aerospace engineer, academic, and author. He is the Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson Collegiate Professor of Aerospace Engineering and the founding Director of the Active Aeroelasticity and Structures Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan. He also directs the Airbus-Michigan Center for Aero-Servo-Elasticity of Very Flexible Aircraft (CASE-VFA).
Joaquim R. R. A. Martins is an aerospace engineer, academic, and author. He is the Pauline M. Sherman Collegiate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory. He also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.