Academy engineering among nation's top programs

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U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFPN) --  Several U.S. Air Force Academy undergraduate engineering programs rank among the top in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Report's America's best colleges 2007 rankings.

The U.S. News & World Report rankings were released Aug. 18.

The rankings are separated by which universities offer graduate education programs, and those which have only undergraduate programs, such as the Air Force Academy.

Overall, the academy's undergraduate engineering programs are tied with Pennsylvania's Bucknell University for the No. 7 program in the nation this year.

Among the other undergraduate engineering specialties which were evaluated, the academy ranked No. 7 in Electrical Engineering and No. 2 in the Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering category.

"Professionally speaking, I have no doubt our programs and our people have excelled over the past year," said Brig. Gen. Dana Born, dean of faculty. "We have lengthened out stride to become more learning focused and many of our personnel, faculty and cadets have been nationally recognized for their performance and contributions in their fields of study.

"Research funding, which is another external validation of our capabilities, continues to expand as our cadet-centered research solves real-world problems," the general said.

The academy received $22 million in research funding in 2005, and $25 million for 2006, spread across more than a dozen research centers ranging from satellites to space weather, to use of photoionic liquids, to airborne lasers, alternative energy sources, microbial contamination in aircraft fuel systems, and even improving the structural life of the Air Force's aging aircraft fleet.

A large portion of that research funding goes to the Department of Aeronautical Engineering. This semester, that funding supports continued work on the NASA crew exploration vehicle, dozens of unmanned aerial vehicle programs, and advances world-leading research in the application of plasma actuators, which alter airflow around an aircraft and generate thrust, all without any moving parts.

The U.S. News & World Report rankings are a weighted combination of factors. These start with peer assessment by university deans and senior faculty being the most heavily-weighted factor (25 percent), and continue through faculty resources (20 percent), graduation and retention rates (20 percent), student selectivity (15 percent), financial resources (10 percent), alumni giving rate (5 percent) and graduation rate performance (5 percent).

This formula has ranked the academy's aeronautical and astronautical engineering programs as No. 2 in the nation every year since 2001, behind only Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Since last year's rankings, cadets in the academy's Department of Astronautical Engineering have built and launched a rocket over the Pacific Ocean, and have another on the drawing boards slated for a spring launch.

In the past 12 months, the academy's astronautical engineering program has also delivered and launched its FalconSAT-2 small satellite, completed and delivered its FalconSAT-3 satellite for launch, and began design work on its FalconSAT-4 satellite.

FalconSAT-3 is scheduled for a Nov. 2 launch aboard an Atlas V rocket from Florida.