Aerospace engineering is the engineering of flight, and involves the design and operation of planes and space vehicles. It draws on the expertise of various branches of engineering and science and produces some of the most complex and technologically advanced vehicles ever conceived, such as spacecraft and the rovers used on the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. The field is central to many aspects of global communications and monitoring day to day through the vast array of satellites that orbit the Earth.

This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the concepts involved in the creation of systems that fly. Among the topics discussed are aerodynamics, aircraft structures and materials, aircraft propulsion, flight mechanics, and stability and control.