School of Aerospace Engineering, Xiamen University recently received a confirmation in mail from Adam Siebenhaar, the session chair of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, AIAA that its bid for the 21st International Space Plane and Hypersonic Systems and Technology Conference has been approved. The conference will be held in 2017.

    AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference provides a forum for discussion and exchange of information about leading-edge research and development activities. These activities are associated with space planes and hypersonic atmospheric flight vehicles and the technologies underpinning these capabilities, including national programs from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. It is held every other 18 months. Participants are mainly from America, China, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Japan and international organization, such as European Space Agency.

    Because aerospace engineering is related to national security, AIAA used to host nearly 30 conferences every year within the US. In recent years, China’s outstanding progress in the field of hypersonic systems and technology has become the focus of the world. Xiamen University has recently risen to prominence under the leadership of Prof. You Yancheng, who was fully employed by Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V and chairman of chapter in the 17^th International Space Plane and Hypersonic Systems and Technology Conference. Prof. You, on behalf of Xiamen University, at the 20^th International Space Plane and Hypersonic Systems and Technology Conference, submitted in July 2015 the bid for the 21^st Conference to AIAA. The successful bid, beating the competitors ASI-CGS(Italy) and National Institute For Space Research( Brazil) based on the sum of all moments as the following diagram shows, means AIAA for the first time moves the conference to China.

    For information about AIAA, visit http://www.aiaa.org/AboutAIAA/