A breathtaking year in aerospace! You don't want to miss this!

The year 2025 - 2026 marked another amazing year for aerospace, especially for the AIAA Los Angeles Section area! The recent accomplishment of humans returning to the Moon and broke the record for the farthest human spaceflight with the Artemis-II Mission with the L3-Harris RS-25 engine. The joint effort between Starfish Space and Impulse Space, the Remora mission marked an industry first: a fully autonomous rendezvous and proximity operation (RPO) executed using a single lightweight camera system and closed-loop GNC software running on a peripheral flight compute. And the successful missions of the W-5 (Varda Space Industries) hypersonic reentry vehicles with microgravity bio-pharmaceutical experiment payloads. The Starship V3 is also in progress for the first test flight. More and more aerospace businesses moved into or expanded in the Los Angeles Section area (including Long Beach).

We are blessed to be in the right place and at the right time! More exciting programs will take place as it goes. Other wonderful developments have been rapidly unfolding. Nationally, we saw the X-59 quiet supersonic jet development, the development of the next generation commercial space stations by VAST Space, Axiom Space, Voyager Space, the blended wing body design aircraft by JetZero, etc.

Please join us to have fun and cheer for the great accomplishments for the bright future of aerospace. The AIAA Los Angeles Section Annual Awards Dinner is a condensed version of what the AIAA and the LA Section have been doing for a long time and a demonstration of our goals / mission / daily actions.

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Please join us for our annual Awards Dinner

Thursday, May 14, 2026

Recognizing Excellence in our wonderful AIAA Los Angeles Section

Keynote Address:

Dr. William Ailor

(The Aerospace Corporation, retired)

AIAA Fellow Class of 2026

"My Career and Planetary Defense"

To be presented:

AIAA Los Angeles Technical Excellence Award 2026

Impulse Space: Remora Mission

L3Harris Technologies Inc.: Artemis-II (RS-25 for SLS)

Impulse Space: Remora Mission

L3Harris Technologies Inc.: Artemis-II

Impulse Space Representative

Dr. Gary Li

Director of Government Business Development

L3Harris Representative

Mr. Mike Lauer

General Manager and Program Manager for the RS-25 Rocket Engine Program

To be recognized:

AIAA Membership Advancement in the Los Angeles Section

AIAA Fellow Class of 2026

Dr. William Ailor

(The Aerospace Corporation, retired)

AIAA Associate Fellow Class of 2026

Kevin D. Bell

(Senior Vice President of the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG), The Aerospace Corporation)

AIAA Associate Fellow Class of 2026

Mark Olmos


Senior Consulting Engineer

(Northrop Grumman, Defense Systems)

AIAA Associate Fellow Class of 2026

Michael Jones

(Systems Technology, Inc.)

(No photo)

AIAA Best Paper Award selected by AIAA TC

"Digital Twins of Additive Manufacturing Parts for Fatigue Life Prediction AIAA-2025-0195"

Leland Shimizu

(The Aerospace Corporation)

AIAA Technical Excellence Award

"For outstanding contributions in studies of flames, including flame theory and fundamental flame property measurements and simulations especially at engine-relevant conditions."

Prof. Fokion N Egolfopoulos

(University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering)

DBF at UCLA

Third Place

AIAA Design Build and Fly (DBF) Contest 2026 at Wichita, KS

(and other recognitions in Los Angeles Section)

AIAA Los Angeles Section

Major AIAA Membership Anniversaries

Best Event Award

The James Wertz Scholarship

STEM Student Awards 

AIAA SSTC Middle School Essay Contest Local Entry Recognition

Recognition of 2026 Chapter Honorees

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Moderators

Dr. Jeff Puschell

AIAA Region VI Director of Education, AIAA Fellow,

Advisor, AIAA Los Angeles Section

National Academy of Engineering, SPIE Fellow

Northrop Grumman Corporation | Space Systems

Luis Cuevas

Section Chair, AIAA Los Angeles Section

Structure Engineer, JetZero

Tentative Agenda: (All Time PDT (US & Canada, GMT -0700))

05:00 PM Check-in, Networking, Posters Viewing

05:50 PM Welcome and Dinner

07:00 PM Keynote address

07:30 PM Technical Excellence Award & Briefing

07:55 PM Recognition: Membership Advancement

08:00 PM Recognition (TBA)

08:05 PM Celebration: Major Membership Anniversaries

08:10 PM Recognition: AIAA National Awards

08:15 PM Best Event Awards (and Notable Recognitions) of Los Angeles Section

08:20 PM Recognition: (TBA)

08:30 PM James Wertz Scholarship

08:40 PM STEM Student Awards and other Recognitions

08:45 PM AIAA SSTC Middle School Essay Contest local entry recognition

08:50 PM Closing Remarks

09:00 PM Adjourn / Networking

10:00 PM Meeting Room closes.

The buffet tickets have been sold out. The A la Carte tickets are still available. Thank you so much!

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Disclaimer: The views of the speakers do not represent the views of AIAA or the AIAA Los Angeles Section. This is not a course to train people how to start a business.

Tickets: (No Refund within 7 days before the event. No Refund during or after the event.)

In-Person:

Dinner: (Buffet with Brisket and other trays to be served)

Tickets:

$55 AIAA Student / Educator Member Price (w/ Dinner)

$60 Non-AIAA Member -Student / Educator (w/ Dinner)

$68 AIAA Professional Member Price (w/ Dinner)

$75 Non-AIAA Member -Professional Price (w/ Dinner)

$63 AIAA Life-Time Member (w/ Dinner)

$58 AIAA Member with 20 or more years of membership (w/ Dinner)

Online Only (Not In-Person Attendance) (No Dinner):

$2.95: (Online Only) AIAA Professional Member

$5.95: (Online Only) Non-AIAA Member - Professional

$1.95: (Online Only) AIAA Educator Member

$4.95: (Online Only) Non-AIAA Member - Educator

$1.45: (Online Only) AIAA University Student Member

$4.45: (Online Only) Non-AIAA Member - University Student

$0 (No Charge): (Online Only) AIAA High School (HS) Student Member, Non AIAA Member HS Student, and other K-12 Student

(Those K-12 student registrants will be required to type in a statement during registration to confirm with honesty they are indeed High School or K-12 Students.)

$2.95: (Online Only) AIAA Member - Other Categories

$5.95: (Online Only) Non-AIAA Member - Other Categories

$0 (No Charge): (Online Only) AIAA Life-Time Member

$0 (No Charge): (Online Only) AIAA Member with 20 or more years of membership

Contact: contact@aiaa-lalv.org if any questions. AIAA Los Angeles Website: https://www.aiaa-lalv.org, AIAA Membership: https://www.aiaa.org/membership

Thank you very much !