Ranked No. 3 in aerospace and fueled by new grant, equips engineers for space race
For decades engineering grads have powered Long Beach’s aerospace rise. Now the College of Engineering is modernizing that pipeline with a $15 million redesign that will put industry-grade tools in students’ hands and train them to step straight into high-demand roles.
Fueling the comprehensive redesign is a $2.27 million equipment grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, whose investment illustrates the engineering college’s importance in a sector that has, in recent years, shifted from aircraft manufacturing to spaceflight and satellite production.
䳧’s aerospace program was just named No. 3 in the nation among non-doctoral programs by U.S. News & World Report, part of a strong showing that also saw civil engineering rank No. 6, computer engineering rank No. 11 and the entire college rank No. 26 overall. Meanwhile, seven engineering programs earned full reaccreditation this fall, with biomedical engineering achieving its initial accreditation — clear markers of quality at a time of rising demand for industry talent.
“What excites me most about the College of Engineering is how it continually grows, evolves and achieves,” said Dean Jinny Rhee, noting that its top-notch faculty, programs and research are vital to student success and industry innovation. Established in 1957 — the same year the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, marking the start of the space age — the college enrolls some 5,000 students annually and is a trusted supplier of engineering talent to the region’s aerospace and advanced manufacturing sectors. “We push frontiers in student success programming, emerging curricula and research,” she said.
Set to break ground in 2026, the college’s renovation will upgrade existing labs while adding a few new ones. Plans include a clean room for ; a wet lab for biotechnology, chemical engineering and materials research; space for a new ; a refreshed rocket lab and an expanded additive manufacturing lab with metal 3D printing, circuit board printing and bioprinting.
The federal equipment grant, which narrows the remaining funding gap for the modernization, was secured with written support from the city and several regional employers, who pledged internships and career roles for grads.
Executives from two of those companies — Orbital Operations CEO Ben Schleuniger and VAST's chief people officer, Karin Kuo — joined Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson at a campus announcement and panel discussion Oct. 20 to highlight the city-campus-employer partnership behind the grant.
Indeed, Long Beach’s Rocket Lab is among the country's most active rocket-launch providers, and Vast — also headquartered here — is building the world’s first privately developed, free-flying space station. Other local manufacturers include Relativity Space (reusable rockets), Orbital Operations (cryogenic propulsion), SpinLaunch (kinetic launch systems), Wisk (autonomous air taxis) and one of the newest pillars of the local industry, the Nikon Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center — a 90,000-square-foot site opened in 2024 to expand aerospace, aviation and defense manufacturing. Boeing, meanwhile, remains a major local employer.
Richardson called it “an incredible cluster of space companies and defense companies that we proudly call Space Beach" and praised university leadership and college faculty for feeding the workforce so well.
“The future of Space Beach depends on the partnerships we build today, partnerships that connect our campus to our growing aerospace and space manufacturing industries,” Richardson said, adding that Long Beach “couldn’t be the fastest growing aerospace cluster in America without all of you.”
Photo Gallery: Rocket Lab in Action
In January 2025, Beach students traveled to the Mojave Desert to conduct a static test of their rocket engine. Three months later, they returned to the same site to launch it. [.]
