History of AIAA

Introduction

At midnight on 31 January 1963, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) officially began operating. The results of years of careful planning, AIAA was a new society formed by the merger of two venerable predecessor societies, the American Rocket Society, which had begun in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society, and the Institute of the Aerospace Sciences, established in 1932 as the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences. Although many of the roughly 36, 500 total members in both societies had argued against the merger, the vote was strongly in favor of combining. The hard part, that of sorting out over 60 years’ combined activities of publications, awards, local sections, and staff, was still ahead.

 

 The Merger
Two Pioneering Traditions United
For more than 80 years, AIAA has been the principal society of the aerospace engineer and scientist. But we haven’t always been AIAA, or even one organization.

In 1963, the two great aerospace societies of the day merged. The American Rocket Society and the Institute of Aerospace Science* joined to become AIAA. Both brought long and eventful histories to the relationship – histories that stretched back to the 1930s, a time when rocketry was the stuff of science fiction and the aviation business was still in its infancy.

Each society left its distinct mark on AIAA. The merger combined the imaginative, risk-taking, shoot-for-the-moon outlook of Project Mercury-era rocket, missile, and space professionals with the more established, well-recognized, industry-building achievers of the aviation community. The resulting synergy has benefited aerospace ever since.

Today, the Institute continues to be the principal voice, information resource, and publisher for aerospace engineers, scientists, managers, policymakers, students, and educators. AIAA is also the go-to resource for stimulating professional accomplishment and standards-driven excellence in all areas of aerospace for prominent corporations and government organizations worldwide.

*The two societies were originally the American Interplanetary Society and the Institute of Aeronautical Science.
 AIAA History
AIAA Presidents

See a list of past AIAA presidents throughout the history of the Institute.