A Transformative Year in Aerospace


Top Trends From 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum

I could not imagine a more exciting way to kick off the new year than attending my first AIAA SciTech Forum, and to do so as the CEO of the Institute.

As our industry’s premier aerospace R&D event, the forum brought together over 6,000 of the best engineering minds from industry, academia, and government to “Energize the Future.” With a focus on science and technology breakthroughs, as well as collaboration across our community, the forum explored how we are enabling new means of transportation and exploration that will revolutionize society and improve efficiency to help achieve our sustainability goals.

The quality of the conversations on the main stage – from Mars rovers to supercomputing to artificial intelligence – remain with me. We delved into the most important advances coming from our community to inform my top trends that will affect aerospace in 2025.

There was so much more that we discussed surrounding these trends during the forum. You can view the forum proceedings in our impressive Aerospace Research Central to gain the insights you need for your pursuits this year. I look forward to building on the ideas and energy from this year’s forum to engage with our entire community as we look to make an indelible impact this year.

Top Trends From 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum Transforming Aerospace This Year

#1. The Power of AI / Gen AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its generative cousin dominated forum conversations. We heard that 90% of the world’s data was created in the last three years, with 94% of it unstructured. GenAI systems leverage vast datasets to autonomously generate novel solutions and designs, enhancing innovation and applications, allowing you to optimize materials, scale production, validate and qualify solutions, and speed decision making.

Alexis Bonnell, chief information officer and director of Digital Capabilities Directorate for the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), otherwise known as AFRL’s AI evangelist, told us, “Technology fails when it fails to serve people.” Bonnell made a powerful case for changing the narrative on AI to make it more accessible while urging CIOs to lead differently.

#2. Advanced Air Mobility Kicks into Another Gear

Aviation’s focus on electrified aircraft and advanced air mobility (AAM) was explored in depth. Hybrid and electric take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft builders showcased their firms’ capabilities, while the U.S. AAM Interagency Working Group convened to discuss R&D policy and the current state of infrastructure, investment, and public acceptance required to keep AAM momentum going.

AAM proponents face notable hurdles on their path to creating a robust and healthy ecosystem. Some of the larger issues include the need for a national electric grid connected to regional ones that enable multi-modal transportation options as well as localized weather infrastructure that can measure and forecast low-altitude weather so traffic controllers can safely do route planning for air vehicles. In its just released report, the AIAA Certification Task Force proposes solutions to many of these challenges.

The ultimate sign that all-electric aircraft are safe and trustworthy is when aircraft founders get into the cockpit. Read more on these flights from Aerospace America.

#3. Green Propulsion as the Way Forward

Aviation OEMs and spacecraft builders are all embracing green propulsion and with good reason: It offers a high-performance, high-efficiency alternative to conventional chemical propellants. It’s also key to achieving carbon net-zero in aviation by 2050. That’s important given that the transportation sector leads emissions over power generation, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

“Aerospace is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize,” admitted Peter de Bock, program director for ARPA-E, during a panel on sustainability.

In 2025, we expect widespread adoption of electric propulsion systems for both aircraft and spacecraft, significantly reducing emissions and paving the way for more environmentally friendly air travel.

“We see huge opportunities in hydrogen,” said Michael Winter, chief science officer at RTX. Winter noted a new hydrogen steam-based turbine engine concept has been shown to be 35% more efficient while reducing oxides of nitrogen by 99.3%.

The forum also covered space-based propulsion and the potential of using nuclear power in the atmosphere for atmospheric propulsion, which Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine editors highlighted on their post-event podcast.

#4. Hypersonics Pushing Ahead

We heard about advances in hypersonics through the numerous sessions of the 26th AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference held alongside the forum, especially in the eight country reports.

In addition, this year’s presenter of the Durand Lecture for Public Service, Kevin Bowcutt, principal senior technical fellow and chief scientist of Hypersonics at The Boeing Company, shared his overview of the history and prospects of supersonic systems. He noted that the emergence of multidisciplinary design optimization developed over the last 25 to 30 years, is a positive step helping hypersonic system designers optimize their designs through modeling tools to help solve integration challenges faster.

#5. Prioritizing Software & Digital Transformation

Software remains vital to our nation’s global competitiveness, innovation, and national security. Under the leadership of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI), the United States is creating a multiyear R&D vision and roadmap for engineering next-generation software-reliant systems. “Software engineering is … not only a national but a global priority,” said Ipek Ozkaya, director of Engineering Intelligent Software Systems at Carnegie Mellon’s SEI.

The agenda goes hand in hand with aerospace’s focus on digital transformation, which extends beyond commercial companies to include the U.S. Air Force and Space Force. The forces are prioritizing digital engineering across their science and technology portfolio, as we heard from Kristen Baldwin, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering, in her plenary remarks.

#6. Embracing Robotics and Autonomy

Autonomous systems are making their mark across the aerospace landscape, from the rise in advanced air mobility to the growing commercial presence in space, and rapid developments in defense systems.

During a plenary, Marco Pavone, lead autonomous vehicle researcher at Nvidia and an associate professor at Stanford University, said, “This is a golden age for robotics and autonomy,” and he isn’t alone in that sentiment.

“I foresee the first habitable, critical infrastructure on the surface of Mars being constructed by a team of robots,” added Eric Smith, senior principal, Remote Sensing and Data Analytics at Lockheed Martin Space.

Smith also contends that autonomous systems will one day transform the speed and effectiveness of first responders, including how firefighters predict, detect, and fight wildfires.

#7. Combating the Climate Crisis from Space

NASA and commercial partners are making headway with space-enabled Earth observation advances that can detect greenhouse gases from space, track fires, and help predict natural disasters. JPL is working to identify super emitters like methane, an odorless gas invisible to the naked eye that is responsible for 30–40% of global warming. Runaway methane leaks in pipelines cost oil and gas companies $1 billion a year, noted JPL Director Laurie Leshin. Methane is visible now from orbit thanks to the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission attached to the International Space Station (ISS).

Insights from JPL’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station, or ECOSTRESS mission, are helping cities find hot spots. This allows Los Angeles to alleviate the heat issue by testing a reflective coating on streets that provides a noticeably cooler environment.

Lockheed Martin also is exploring advanced technologies to help firefighters better predict, detect, and fight wildfires. Using the power of AI, their technology could analyze fire behavior in near real-time to enable fire growth predictions and to deliver persistent communications across multiagency air and land suppression units, so they might respond quicker to a large complex fire.

#8. Sustained Human Presence – In LEO, on the Moon, and on to Mars

A major highlight was NASA’s unveiling of its Low Earth Orbit Microgravity Strategy, which calls for a continuous heartbeat in orbit. That’s what we’ve enjoyed for the last 24 years thanks to the ISS – “a true, unbroken, continuous presence, where there’s always a person living and working in space,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator, noting that if the United States doesn’t maintain a continuous heartbeat, it risks ceding low Earth orbit to others.

Our quest to return humans to the lunar surface in preparation for landing on Mars will see major momentum. Two private moon landers already launched this year: Texas-based Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and iSpace of Japan shared a ride on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. We’re anticipating Blue Origin’s MK1 Lunar Lander pathfinder launch and the European Space Agency’s first orbital test flight of Space Rider, its uncrewed spaceplane, as well as ongoing preparations for the Artemis program.

To ensure we are ready, NASA is funding next-generation spacesuit designs using virtual digital twins. The space agency is now accelerating plans to safely bring back Mars samples that could prove the existence of life there, reported JPL’s Leshin. NASA also is studying turbulence while flying and landing on Mars by tapping into Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer, housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Read more from the plenary featuring Frontier.

A bonus trend is the acceleration of reusable launch systems, especially heavy-lift vehicles. In the week immediately following the forum, Blue Origin debuted its heavy-lift vehicle, New Glenn, and SpaceX tested its Starship for the seventh time. The companies gained valuable engineering data from their tests, seeing both success and tough learnings. Reusability is the future of launch, which will accelerate the growing space economy by reducing costs, expanding access to space, and helping return us to the moon and on to Mars.

Read the news from the forum and watch full sessions on the AIAA YouTube channel.

Infographic of 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum: 6,200 attendees, 2,000+ university students, 2,900 technical papers, 127 fellows inducted, 104 exhibitors.
Credit: AIAA

A Transformative Year in Aerospace