Sectors of Instruction

The Aeronautics and Astronautics Department is divided into three sectors: Aerospace Systems, Information, and Vehicle Technologies sectors. When you apply to the Department, you must designate one Sector that most closely matches your own professional and research interests. This enables us to place you with the right advisors and in the right research labs. To see a list of faculty associated with each sector, visit the sectors affiliation page on this site. If you apply online, as part of the process you'll be asked to designate your chosen sector. If you chose to apply by mail, there is a PDF Sector selection form in the Forms and Documentation section of this Web site.

Aerospace Systems Sector

The Aerospace Systems Sector is responsible for instruction and research in systems engineering — a discipline that denotes the methodologies used in the architecting, design, manufacture, and operation of the highly complex and demanding systems edging out from the field of aeronautics and astronautics. The sector comprises faculty with research specialties in this area, and a group of faculty affiliates who represent the full disciplinary strength of the department.

The systems approach considers all factors important to the performance, economic viability, manufacture, acceptability, and operation of engineering systems- technical, social, environmental, production, financial, and safety aspects- and attempts to find optimal or best value tradeoffs among them while considering risk and uncertainty. The systems engineer must deal simultaneously with these factors, whether the objective is the transport of passengers in commercial aircraft, orbital communications, or the exploration of space, among others.

This sector addresses issues related to human interaction with aerospace vehicles, including information-related and life support aspects. Safety, fault-tolerance, verification, and validation are significant areas of inquiry. Ongoing research in the sector includes investigation of air traffic management, distributed satellite systems, enterprise architecture, integrated design of space-based optical systems, microgravity research into human physiology and technology maturation, and software development methods for flight and mission critical systems.

Students interested in systems engineering should develop a strong background in some of the disciplines that support systems analysis, such as probability, statistics, optimization, operations research, manufacturing, and economics. Research labs associated with the faculty in the sector are the Man Vehicle Laboratory, the Space Systems Laboratory, the Lean Aerospace Initiative, the International Center in Air Transportation, the Operations Research Center, the Complex Systems Research Laboratory, and the Center for Innovation in Product Development. Many faculty members in this sector work closely with the MIT Engineering Systems Division.

Information Sector

A majority of future aerospace systems will either center on, or critically depend upon, information technology. All will exploit information technology to an increasing extent. The missions of many aerospace systems are fundamentally centered on gathering, processing, and transmitting information. Examples where information technology is central include communication satellites, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft and satellites, planetary rovers, global positioning satellites, the air transportation system, and integrated defense systems. Other aerospace systems also must rely on information technology intensive subsystems to provide important onboard functions including fly-by-wire flight control, autonomous or semi-autonomous guidance and control, cooperative action including flight in formations or swarms, and health monitoring systems. Furthermore, most aircraft and satellites are one system within a larger system. Information plays a central role in the interoperability of systems within a system-of-systems.

Faculty members in the Information Sector teach and perform research on a broad range of areas including the disciplines of guidance, navigation, control, autonomy, communication, networks, and real-time mission-critical software and hardware. In many instances, the functions provided by aerospace information systems are critical to life or mission success. The complex nature of an aerospace system can either be simplified by the use of information technologies,or can become significantly more complicated through the misuse of information technologies. Hence, safety, fault-tolerance, verification, and validation are significant areas of inquiry. Ongoing research in the division includes command and control of multiple unmanned/autonomous vehicles, space and airborne communication systems and networks, software development methods for flight and mission critical systems, investigation of air traffic management, and application of control to smart systems.

The sector has strong linkages to the Department's Systems Sector, particularly regarding issues related human interaction with aerospace vehicles. Other common interests include the safety aspects of large, mission critical software systems, the design and operation of air transportation systems, and the design and operation of satellite systems. The sector also has linkages with the Vehicles Technology sector. Current interest includes research on unmanned aerial vehicles and smart structures. Moreover, the sector also has important linkages to and collaborations with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, as well as the Engineering System Division through joint teaching and research in communication, networks, control, robotic systems, optimization, numerical techniques, and algorithms.

Vehicle Technologies Sector

The faculty in this sector is responsible for teaching and research in the fields of computation, fluid mechanics, propulsion, materials, and structures — technologies needed for the design of aerospace vehicles. Although these can be considered disciplinary fields, the faculty emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches in its teaching and research.

The intellectual breadth of the sector is wide, with a span of activities ranging from fundamental engineering science to design techniques, to measurement technology, to the detailed engineering of complex vehicle components and systems. Topics of interest include the computational design of fluid, material, and structural systems; heat transfer, aerodynamics, and fluid dynamics; reduced order modeling of unsteady fluid flows and structures; structural dynamic analysis and control; turbomachinery; robust design of propulsion and energy system components; electric and chemical space propulsion; gas turbine engine design; propulsion system integration; aerospace noise, emissions, and environmental impact; advanced composites including nanoscale synthesis, characterization, and modeling; microelectromechanical systems and materials; multi-scale modeling and simulation of advanced materials: engineered materials, failure mechanisms, and structural health monitoring; and biofluid mechanics.

Research laboratories and large interdisciplinary projects affiliated with the sector include the Aerospace Computational Design Laboratory, FAA/NASA Center of Excellence: Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction, Gas Turbine Laboratory, Nano-Engineered Composite aerospace STructures (NECST) Consortium, the Space Propulsion Laboratory, and the Technology Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Structures.