The BS Program in Mechanical Engineering (Aeronautical), abbreviated as AE hereafter, is the only undergraduate program offered by the Department of Aerospace Engineering at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). The program was established in 1980 as a division of the Mechanical Engineering Department to satisfy the needs of the development plans in the Kingdom in the field of Aeronautical Engineering. The University Council in 1982 reorganized the Department of Mechanical Engineering into three separate departments: Production Engineering & Mechanical Systems Design, Thermal Engineering & Desalination Technology, and Aeronautical Engineering. The AE program has been repeatedly revised to account for the dynamic growth in the local market as well as the advancements in aerospace sciences. In 2002, the program was evaluated for the first time by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET based on the Engineering Conventional Criteria and was recognized to be “Substantially Equivalent” to ABET accredited programs. The number of graduates in the Aerospace engineering department in the past 5 years is as follows: in the year 2024-25 the number of graduates was 55, year 2023-24 the number of graduates was 39, year 2022-23 the number of graduates was 45, year 2021-22 the number of graduates was 27‎, and year 2020-21 the number of graduates was 43. As of 2026, the current number of enrolled students in the Aerospace Engineering Program is 162 students. The Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Aeronautical) program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET, https://www.abet.org, under the commission’s General Criteria and Program Criteria for Aerospace and Similarly Named Engineering Programs, and Program Criteria for Mechanical and Similarly Named Engineering Programs.