A Textbook of Modern Aerospace Engineering: From the Fundamentals of Flight to the Frontiers of Space

Aerospace engineering is one of the most demanding and rewarding fields of engineering. In little more than a century, it has taken humanity from a twelve-second hop above the sands of Kitty Hawk to routine global air travel, satellites that underpin modern life, and crewed flights around the Moon. Modern Aerospace Engineering is written for undergraduate students beginning that journey. It aims to give them a firm grasp of the fundamental principles on which every aircraft and spacecraft depends, and a clear view of how those principles are being applied to the challenges that will define the field in the coming decades.

The book is organized in ten chapters that move from foundations to frontiers. After an introduction to the history, industry, and design process of aerospace engineering, the core disciplines are developed in turn: aerodynamics, aircraft performance, stability and control, propulsion, and structures and materials. The book then turns to space, covering orbital mechanics and spaceflight and the design of spacecraft systems and their environment. The final chapters address the technologies reshaping the field: avionics, autonomy, artificial intelligence, and unmanned systems, followed by sustainability, new forms of propulsion, and the emerging frontiers of urban air mobility, hypersonic flight, and commercial space. Although each chapter builds on those before it, instructors will find that the chapters on aeronautics and on astronautics can be taught largely independently to suit courses of different lengths and emphases.

A textbook on a field as fast-moving as aerospace must balance enduring principles with current practice. The laws of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and orbital motion do not change, and they form the backbone of this book. Technologies, programs, and regulations, however, evolve quickly, from battery chemistry and hydrogen propulsion to the certification of artificial intelligence and the rules governing supersonic flight. The book describes the state of the field as of the mid-2020s. Wherever developments are still unfolding, it says so and encourages readers to consult current sources. Students should treat the book's numbers for emerging technologies as a starting point for inquiry rather than a final word.

Above all, this book is intended to convey that aerospace engineering is a discipline of responsibility as well as ingenuity. The aircraft and spacecraft that engineers design carry people, protect national security, and affect the global environment, and their success depends on rigorous analysis, careful testing, and honest judgment. It is our hope that students who work through these pages will come away not only with the tools to analyze and design flight vehicles, but also with an appreciation of the history that shaped the field and a sense of the important work that remains to be done. The future of aerospace will be built by those who master its fundamentals and apply them with imagination and care.