High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA was founded in 1963 from the merger of two earlier societies: the American Rocket Society (ARS), founded in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society (AIS), and the Institute of Aerospace Sciences (IAS), founded in 1932 as the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences.