Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

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. Aerospace engineers work with aircraft. They are involved primarily in designing aircraft and propulsion systems and in studying the aerodynamic performance of aircraft and construction materials. They work with the theory, technology, and practice of flight within the Earth’s atmosphere. Aerospace engineering includes mathematics, fluid mechanics, electronic technology, aerodynamics, control engineering, noise control, and aeronautics. Others are flight test, avionics, risk and reliability, solid mechanics, materials science, software, and many more. Aerospace engineers typically specialize in one of two types of engineering: aeronautical or astronautical.

Aeronautical engineers– work with aircraft. They are involved primarily in designing aircraft and propulsion systems and in studying the aerodynamic performance of aircraft and construction materials. They work with the theory, technology, and practice of flight within the Earth’s atmosphere.

Astronautical engineers– work with the science and technology of spacecraft and how they perform inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. This includes work on small satellites such as cubesats, and traditional large satellites.  

Aeronautical and astronautical engineers face different environmental and operational issues in designing aircraft and spacecraft. However, the two fields overlap a great deal because they both depend on the basic principles of physics. And with commercial travel becoming even more frequent recently demand’s for more aerospace engineer’s has risen 6% by 2026.