Aeronautics and Astronautics brings together advanced engineering across a range of disciplines with applications in air vehicle specification, design and construction.
Course structure
Group work
E-learning
The first two years of our courses provide a solid, focussed, foundation for the design and operation of air vehicles and spacecraft. You will follow a core set of modules before specialising in your chosen area in the third and fourth years.
Practical experience is essential in today’s employment market: our group projects provide the perfect opportunity for you to enhance your practical and team working skills.
Most staff use Blackboard as an electronic medium to disseminate printed notes, exercises and other teaching material. In some cases tests are carried out via Blackboard. Besides being part of the assessment, such tests are designed to provide you with rapid feedback regarding your understanding of the taught material.
In Year 3, you will have the opportunity to specialise by selecting a theme (MEng only). You will also undertake an individual project, as well as a group aircraft (or spacecraft) design exercise. In Year 4, MEng students take modules relevant to their chosen theme and participate in a Group Design Project (GDP).
How will you learn? We offer a dynamic mix of lectures and seminars led by experts at the forefront of their fields, practical lab sessions in our world-class facilities, industry site visits and project work. Our lectures include guest speakers from industry and other institutions from around the world. In addition to lectures, in Years 1 and 2 you will have tutorials and laboratory classes with teaching staff, which are held in small groups, and individual supervision of your projects in Years 3 and 4. We will also help you to develop key skills, including written and oral presentation skills, using a wide variety of learning methods.
All of our undergraduates complete an individual research or design project in their third year as well as a group aircraft or spacecraft design exercise. In the past students have designed an A320-type replacement airliner, a microlight aircraft and a moon orbiter. Year 4 GDPs are often linked to current research activities or topics that have practical relevance to industry e.g unmanned air vehicles, spacecraft instrumentation, electric propulsion devices and racing car components.
Field trips We take all our second year students on an exciting one-week practical course in Flight Testing at Southampton International Airport where experiments are performed on board a Jetstream flying laboratory aircraft. We have connections with key players across the aerospace and automotive industries and organise a number of visits to industry partners and research establishments. In the past we have taken students to Agusta Westland, Airbus UK, Rolls-Royce and QinetiQ.
Student support service for learning Each student is assigned a personal tutor, whose role is to monitor and supervise your overall progress on your degree and to provide pastoral care, support and advice, where appropriate . For any non-academic problems student services are able to help and support you during your time at the University. Our Employability Coordinator can point you in the right direction to help you obtain the relevant skills and experience you need to further your career. They have connections with local, national and international employers as well as the University careers advisory service (Careers Destinations). We also have a Staff-Student Liaison Committee in place to give students the opportunity to voice any issues and to help us to improve the student experience.
Further information For more details about our courses visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ engineering/aero
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