1. Introduction
The predecessor of the Department of Aerospace Design Engineering was the flight mechanics teaching and research group belonging to the department of Aerospace Engineering built in 1958. There are more than 20 faculty members, including 1 fellow of the Chinese Academy of engineering, 1 fellow of the Russia's foreign academician of Academy of Aerospace, 9  professors and 3  “National 863” members. In our department, there are currently 120 postgraduates (40 are doctor program) and 150 undergraduates.

2. Disciplines
 In our department, the most important discipline is the flight vehicle design, which is also the national key discipline and the "211 project" and "985 project" key construction discipline. We have the master program, doctor program and post-doctoral program. In the previous national discipline evaluations of China, this major has been always in a leading position. In the discipline evaluation organized by the Academic Degree Commission of the State Council in 1992, the Aircraft design (which was called Flight Mechanics then) in our department won the first among 27 related disciplines.

3. Education
  In our department, the “flight vehicle design and engineering” is offered as a four-year BSc. The educational objectives are: to cultivate senior engineers and researchers,
who are good at mathematics, mechanics and aircraft design theory, and the analysis of overall structure design and strength of the aircraft with strong experimental capabilities;
who can engage aircraft (including the spacecraft and launch vehicle) overall design, structural design, flight dynamics and system simulation. The characteristic courses are include "basic aerodynamics", "aircraft aerodynamic calculation", "hypersonic aerodynamic calculation", "flexible spacecraft dynamics and control", "missile aerodynamics", "spacecraft flight dynamics "and " missile flight mechanics ", etc. Among them, the course "missile flight mechanics" taught by Professor Fang Qun is awarded as the “national high-quality course” and the course "spacecraft flight Dynamics" is awarded as the “high-quality course of Shaanxi Province”.

4. Research
   Currently, there are more than 40 research projects in the department, funded by the “National Natural Science Foundation of China”, “863 High-tech Project”, “Aerospace Engineering Project of China” and several research institutes. There are more than 100 publications annually in international journals and conferences and issues a number of monographs and textbooks. Also lots of patents are authorized.
  The main research areas are:
(1) The overall space vehicle technology and design;
(2) Virtual prototyping and system simulation technology;
(3) Space maneuver and operational technology;
(4) Vehicle dynamics and control;
(5) Hypersonic vehicle dynamics, guidance, control and aerodynamic / Pneumatic thermal numerical calculation;
(6) Aircraft coupling, aerodynamic noise / structural coupling and nonlinear Aeroservoelastic.

5. Laboratories
   There are three laboratories in the department: Space Vehicle Lab, Space Maneuver and Operation Lab, and Multidisciplinary Flight Dynamics and Control Lab. The equipments such as virtual prototype simulation platform, rapid prototyping test platform, visual simulation platform and aerodynamic wind tunnel experiment teaching in these labs, provide the essential support for a high standard teaching and research.

6. Major Achievements
   (1) Won the first-class National Science and Technology Progress Award for once.
   (2) Won the first-class National Defense Science and Technological Progress Award for twice and the second-class for twice.