The School of Aeronautics was founded in 2003, but its history can be traced backed to the year of 1937. In 1937, the aeronautical engineering departments from Jiaotong university, Nanjing university, and Zhejiang university were merged together and became the Eastern China Aeronautics institute, which was later merged to NPU. There are four departments in the School of Aeronautics, including the department of civil aviation engineering, the department of aircraft design engineering, the department of integrated technology and control engineering, and the department of aeronautical structure engineering.
The School of Astronautics, as one of the pioneers of the astronautic technology in China, was founded as Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1958, and reformed to the School of Aerospace Engineering in 1988. On July of 2003, the school was officially named as School of Astronautics. The School of Astronautics plays a critical important role in NPU and forms the heart of NPU together with the School of Aeronautics and School of Marine Technology.