Charter:
AeroSpace Architecture Subcommittee
of the AIAA Design Engineering Technical Committee

July 15, 2001

This Subcommittee provides a technical forum for interactions among qualified professionals in AeroSpace Architecture. This charter defines AeroSpace Architecture broadly to encompass architectural design of living and working environments in AeroSpace-related facilities, habitats, and vehicles. These environments include, but are not limited to: science platform aircraft and aircraft-deployable systems; space vehicles, stations, habitats and lunar and planetary bases; and earth-based control, experiment, launch, logistics, payload, simulation and test facilities. Earth analogs to space applications may include Antarctic, desert, high altitude, underground, undersea environments and closed ecological systems.

Designing these forms of architecture presents a particular challenge: to ensure and support safety, habitability, human reliability, and crew productivity in the context of extreme and unforgiving environments. For this reason, the Subcommittee supports professional (terrestrial) licensure for architects and engineers: the standard is to protect the health and safety of the public. In air or space, the need to protect crew health and safety is even more immediate and critical.

The scope of AeroSpace Architecture embraces a multidisciplinary approach to design. In this sense, architects have the experience and training to offer unique approaches to system integration for a variety of design disciplines. The intent of this initiative is not to add new responsibilities to the existing members of the TC, but to attract new members. New members of the DETC will carry out the work based upon their design disciplines.

The goal of this Committee is to work toward establishing an AIAA Technical Committee for AeroSpace Architecture. In this integration approach, the Subcommittee hopes to foster a focus upon the design product of the human environment in space. The Subcommittee adopts these objectives:

1. Establish standards for design parameters not covered by NASA or other agencies such as measurement of habitable areas and volumes.
2. Support professional education, preparation, qualification, and licensure.
3. Promote communications among design professionals working in this field.
4. Sponsor conference sessions and scholarly publications with a specific emphasis upon significant design problems.
5. Advance research in Architectural design methods, processes, and technologies and promote their application to AeroSpace Architecture.
6. Bring new members into AIAA to serve on this Subcommittee, leading to a new Technical Committee for AeroSpace Architecture.