Aerospace Engineering is a complicated field with many niches beneath it, and, getting your hands on some free online aerospace engineering courses will be a gem. Some of the niches include; Mechanical Engineering, Military Aerospace Engineering, Material Science, and many more.
It is worth noting that expert aerospace engineers are a rare breed of engineers and therefore are in high demand. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said their average salary is roughly $108,000.
Of course, this comes with good reasons, some of them including the increase in space travel. For instance, NASA planned to go back to the Moon in 2024, and this time, it is not just to visit the Moon but to also stay for a while.
Also, after MagniX launched the first all-electric commercial plane, many companies will want to follow in this footsteps. That means aerospace engineers would be needed to foster this ambition.
Learning free online aerospace engineering courses will make you see some brilliance behind these machines that can fly. I’m talking about airplanes, drones, spacecraft, and rockets.
This calls for more aerospace engineers.
Aerospace engineering has a very promising future. For instance, the world has already started considering using air space on the highways for private and public use.
That is, you might start seeing flying cars very soon, and this will be possible with the help of Aerospace Engineers. Japan is trying everything possible to become the leader in flying car manufacturing.
And, NEC corp is helping them push for this ambition. They have already showcased their first flying car, which flew 10 feet above the floor for a minute.
This experiment got the eyes of the venture capitalist who has put their investment on the ground to make sure this dream is actualized. With the help of Japanese startup, Cartivator, there will be mass production of flying cars in Japan in 2026.
You see, the importance of aerospace engineering in our modern-day world. This is just a little part of what is yet to come in the future.
There is a strong need for aerospace engineers and free online aerospace engineering courses are a good place to start.
[lwptoc]
What is Aerospace Engineering
Aerospace Engineering is a field of engineering that deals with the production, formation, designing, manufacturing, and testing of airplanes, spacecraft, rockets, both on the Earth and in space. This doesn’t mean that only aerospace engineers handle this work.
Aerospace Engineering has two branches;
Aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering.
Aeronautical engineering deals more with flying vehicles in our earth’s atmosphere. I’m talking about airplanes, drones, rockets, you see around our world.
While astronautical engineers took it a little further outside our world, they said “there is more to see in the galaxy, we need to check ’em out.” So they decided to create spacecraft, launch vehicles, satellites, and space shuttles.
Now let’s go down to the one you clicked on this link in the first place, “free online aerospace engineering courses.”
Free Online Aerospace Engineering Courses
Here is a list of free online aerospace engineering courses
- MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Courses
- Introduction to Aerospace Structures and Materials
- Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering
- Introduction to Aircraft Design
- The Conquest of Space: Space Exploration and Rocket Science
- Digitalization in Aeronautics and Space Specialization
1. MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Courses
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is undoubtedly one of the best colleges in the world. They are #1 in 2022 best colleges in America by Niche.com; #2 in 2022 best national universities by USNews.com; #2 best global university ranking by USNews.com.
And so many other authorities that see them as the best. MIT OCW offers lots of free online aerospace engineering courses.
Their free courses bridge the gap between their tuition fee ($17,000) and access to education. They have made education available to anyone in any country as long as the person has access to the internet.
MIT provides access to more than 1,800-course materials that are free to access. In these course materials, you’ll find video lectures, downloadable lecture notes, and exams.
More than 1 million students like you from over 215 different countries visit MIT OCW monthly. Most importantly, most students that have used MIT OCW said the video lecture helped them succeed in difficult quizzes and exams.
Teachers also visit MIT OCW to improve their knowledge and even accumulate some resources for their lectures. Further, you’ll find self-learning students that come around to learn about air and space.
Undergraduate, graduate, researchers, and professors are not excluded here. They all want to go deep in their knowledge regarding aerospace engineering.
And, MIT hasn’t disappointed them. MIT has provided more than 90 courses for aeronautics and astronautic engineering.
MIT has a strong reputation for graduating the largest astronauts more than any other private college in the world. NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and Boeing collaborate with MIT to provide the best lectures to their students.
MIT grouped its aerospace engineering course into 3 categories.
- Aerospace information engineering
- Aerospace system engineering
- Aerospace vehicle engineering
Their first course, “Introduction to aerospace engineering and design,” provides you with lecture notes. That is, you won’t have to start copying lecture notes again during lectures, saving you that strength and time.
There will be conversations during class hours to facilitate what was on the lecture notes. This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that push students to make a portfolio that has notes, ideas they have thought of, and designs.
This portfolio helps them to ensure you have a nice note-taking habit, and help the instructor verify you are taking notes during lectures. This portfolio will also help the instructor grade your personal assistance in aerospace design teamwork.
You will also be assessed through assignments (which can be found on the syllabus homepage). After 1 week when the assignment is due, the solution will be uploaded.
The steps you followed to present a solution to a problem are as important as the final solution. Try and make your solutions clear to your instructor.
As time progresses in the degree, you’ll need to team up with 5 to 6 students to manufacture and design a lighter-than-air vehicle that is controlled with a remote. This vehicle has to carry a large weight to some distance within a short time.
Both the durability and beauty of the vehicle will be judged.
Furthermore, you’ll be graded based on your individual performance in classes, teamwork, reading summaries, and the Lighter-than-air project you carried out.
MIT offers one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that have related resources. That is, you can extend your learning through the related resources.
An almost similar pattern in the “introduction to aerospace engineering and design,” is applied to other classes.
However, MIT OCW won’t offer you a degree upon completion of these courses. So make sure you’re pursuing these courses, not for certificates or degrees.
Visit MIT OCW Aerospace Engineering Courses
2. Introduction to Aerospace Structures and Materials
This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that take only one month to complete. It is offered by the Delft University of Technology, which is the oldest and biggest technological college in the Netherlands.
It has 27,275 students, and have always had the vision to help their engineering students to think outside the box in solving complex problems. Delft University has a very strong reputation regarding good and competent technological education across the world.
And that is not far from their free online aerospace engineering courses. Introduction to aerospace structures and materials is a good course to start shocking your feet in.
This course will show you how aircraft are being designed, and how to reduce failure risk. Life is all about risk, so in the flying vehicles.
The best we can do is reduce all possible risks, but the chances of having a 100% risk-free vehicle or business or investment are not possible. So this course brings your mind to the best way to reduce risks.
This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that will help you to understand the ways to apply safety even in the toughest times. Aircraft is a vehicle that, once there is serious trouble in the air, doesn’t just affect those in the plane, but the environment surrounding it.
Including the place, the plane will land. You’ll learn to apply safety at every stage.
And your instructors are good and experts in Delft University, with their expertise in mechanical properties of aerospace engineering. You’ll learn about manufacturing, the effect of load, what can cause aircraft fatigue and stress, what to consider when designing the aircraft.
After you have successfully gone through this course, you’ll start thinking about aerospace engineers (to some extent). They also offer practicals that you can do on your own.
There are reasons different aircraft are designed the way they air, it’s not just for beauty, you’ll be learning these reasons in this course. You’ll also be learning the reasons some materials are used and why others are dumped.
Why a specific material is used at some specific parts and not needed at other parts.
You see, because it is free doesn’t make it less valuable. Also look out for quizzes and assignments, because you need to prove you are learning well.
For your best use of this course, you need to have basic knowledge of physics, and some aircraft terminologies.
However, to have access to all the course materials and be awarded a scholarship, you need to upgrade with $139.
Visit Introduction to Aerospace Structures and Materials Website
3. Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering
Having an understanding of why airplanes fly is worth acquiring. In fact, if you have been on an airplane at least once, you might have wondered “what’s making this thing fly?”
I shouldn’t tell you it’s not magic, because I know, you know it’s not magic. That’s where an introduction to aeronautical engineering comes in, which, I must mention, is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses.
In this course, you will start to understand why those two bird-like wings are placed on an airplane but a rotary-wing on a helicopter. You’ll even appreciate Newton’s third law of motion “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Let me reveal a little secret, this law is the major reason airplanes fly. But, regarding how this law does it, go to the course and learn it.
Furthermore, Delft University is also the owner of this free course. They will be going a little deep into flight vehicle history.
I’m talking about when balloons were used for flying vehicles, down to our current airplanes.
Your online instructors are also experts in different Universities, and workforce, for instance,
- Jacco M. Hoekstra is a professor of Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM). And, he has researched in the field of avionics, flight simulation, and many more for 16 years, in the National Aerospace Laboratory, Netherlands.
- Jos Sinke is an assistant professor, of Aerospace Engineering at the Delft University of Technology.
- Mark Voskuijl is a professor of Aviation and Weapon systems at the faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defense Academy.
And, many other instructors will be helping you to understand this course.
Introduction to Aeronautical engineering is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that will help you to understand the principles of aerodynamics. For instance, you will start to understand the principle of thrust in an airplane, how it moves the plane forward.
How drag takes the plane back, and how the shape of the wing affects the lifting of the plane. Similarly, you’ll begin to understand the concept behind how planes descend, and the best weather condition to fly.
But, to use the free version, you are also limited in course materials and certificates, you need to upgrade with $139 to get these things. When the course ends, you can still access the course materials in the upgraded version.
Visit Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering Course Website
4. Introduction to Aircraft Design
This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses offered by Alison. Alison is one of the biggest organizations that offer certificate courses.
They have graduated over 4 million students, and have provided all their training for free (you’ve to pay for the certificate). Their goal is to offer education to the world for free.
They believe that everyone is entitled to education no matter the background, ethnicity, or nationality. Their contents are of high quality because their instructors are experts in business, government, industry, and education.
Their courses are accredited by CPD UK (Continuing Professional Development). CPD UK has gone through their teaching and education quality and gave them the go-ahead order to lecture students like you.
Introduction to aircraft design is in high-quality mp4 format, which will enable you to see everything being taught. Also, there are 3 modules with 20 classes.
The course will teach you how engineers choose the best material to build an aircraft, and how it matches the market requirements. Above all, you’ll also learn the concept behind quality aircraft, which Alison called “the 7 steps of making a house of quality.”
Further, you will understand how specific designs of aircraft affect performance.
Alison will offer you a 20% (€7.20) discount to get the certificate which will last for a few minutes.
Visit Introduction to Aircraft Design Course Website
5. The Conquest of Space: Space Exploration and Rocket Science
This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses that doesn’t take a long time to complete. You and I know how beneficial space exploration has been to humankind and earth at large.
To mention a few, we got to know where the earth belongs in the universe, we learned the shape of our world and other galaxies surrounding it. Some people have gone further to push boundaries and realized we might not be alone.
And due to this exploration, a lot of technologies and industries have been produced, thereby opening doors to more employment.
Companies like NASA have gone deeper into low-earth orbit like translunar space and Mars. There has also been robotic exploration, which visits places humans can go.
This enables us to learn more about the outer world.
A lot of investment is and has gone down to space exploration. And this course is meant to tell you more about the history of space, and how space exploration has benefited our world.
It is a 7-week course, and each week there will be a specific focus on space exploration history. Alongside this history, there will be technical topics to support this historic growth.
You’ll also get to learn the political context of the space age.
Moreover, you’ll be presented with aerospace engineering problems to solve.
Visit the space exploration and rocket science course website
6. Digitalization in Aeronautics and Space Specialization
This is one of the free online aerospace engineering courses offered by Coursera. Coursera is one of the best open online courses that was founded at Stanford University, in 2012.
Since its establishment, Coursera has worked with several universities to provide online courses to students, both graduates and undergraduates. Businesses also come to Coursera for learning help.
This course will teach you to understand a lot about the effect of digitalization on aerospace engineering. You’ll also have a look at the aerospace best research.
Coursera also provides a project that needs to be completed and earn your certificate.
There are 3 courses in this field;
- Digitalization in the Aerospace Industry
- Digitalization in Space Research
- Digitalization in Aeronautics
Your instructors are very vast in the area of aerospace engineering. For instance, Prof. Klaus Drechsler graduated from the University of Stuttgart with BSc in aeronautic and aerospace engineering.
And, also had his doctorate in the same University. He has also won some noteworthy awards and made some key publications.
Further, Prof. Guenter W. Hein
Professor, Departement for Satellite Navigation (Bundeswehr University Munich). He has written a book called Mission Earth: Geodynamics and Climate Change Observed Through Satellite Geodesy.
Visit Digitalisation in Aeronautics and Space Specialization Course Website
Conclusion
With these free online aerospace engineering courses, you can learn the basics of aerospace engineering. Remember I said “the basics” because these courses can’t make you a professional in aerospace engineering.
You need to pay for reputable classes. Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”