Aerospace Engineering Careers

Aerospace engineers are responsible for developing extraordinary machines, from airplanes that weigh over a half a million pounds to spacecraft that travel over 17,000 miles an hour. They design, develop, and test aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles and supervise the manufacturing of these products. Aerospace engineers who work with aircraft are considered aeronautical engineers, and those working specifically with spacecraft are considered astronautical engineers.

Aerospace engineers develop new technologies for use in aviation, defense systems, and space exploration, often specializing in areas such as structural design, guidance, navigation and control, instrumentation and communication, or production methods. They often use Computer-aided Design (CAD), robotics, and lasers and advanced electronic optics to assist them. They also may specialize in a particular type of aerospace product, such as commercial transports, military fighter jets, helicopters, spacecraft, or missiles and rockets. Aerospace engineers may be experts in aerodynamics, thermodynamics, celestial mechanics, propulsion, acoustics, or guidance and control systems.

Aerospace engineers typically are employed within the aerospace industry, although their skills are becoming increasingly valuable in other fields. For example, aerospace engineers in the motor vehicles manufacturing industry design vehicles that have lower air resistance, increasing the fuel efficiency of vehicles.

Aerospace engineers are expected to have slower-than-average growth in employment over the projection period. Although increases in the number and scope of military aerospace projects likely will generate new jobs, increased efficiency will limit the number of new jobs in the design and production of commercial aircraft. Even with slow growth, the employment outlook for aerospace engineers through 2014 appears favorable: the number of degrees granted in aerospace engineering declined for many years because of a perceived lack of opportunities in this field, and, although this trend is reversing, new graduates continue to be needed to replace aerospace engineers who retire or leave the occupation for other reasons.

According to a 2005 salary survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, bachelor's degree candidates in aerospace engineering received starting offers averaging $50,993 a year, master's degree candidates were offered $62,930, and Ph.D. candidates were offered $72,529.

• Aerospace Industries Association
• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautic