• These vehicles range from helicopters and other vertical takeoff aircraft at the low-speed end of the flight spectrum, to spacecraft traveling at thousands of miles per hour during launch, orbit, transplanetary flight, or reentry, at the high-speed end.
  • In between, there are general aviation and commercial transport aircraft flying at speeds well below and close to the speed of sound, and supersonic transports, fighters, and missiles. Although each speed regime and each vehicle poses its special problems, all aerospace vehicles can be addressed by a common set of technical specialties or disciplines.
  • The Department of Aerospace is a stand-alone department, meaning we are not part of a larger department, but instead we are a separate and distinct discipline. On some campuses, aerospace is a division of the mechanical engineering department. At Maryland, we have approximately 22 professors who predominantly or solely teach aerospace courses to our undergraduate and graduate students.