[4][5] IPSA was founded in 1961[6] in Paris by Michel Cazin, the private secretary of Louis de Broglie and a teacher at the mechanical department of CNAM, Maurice Pradier and Paul Lefort.

[9][10] In 2007, IPSA opened a second campus in Toulouse, joined the Erasmus Programme and concluded double degree agreements with foreign universities.

Following its establishment in Toulouse, the university joined the Institut au service du spatial, de ses applications et technologies in 2008.

[11] The next year, IPSA joined Aerospace Valley[12] and moved to Ivry-sur-Seine close to the university ESME-Sudria[13] before being accredited by the French state in 2010.

[27] It offers a five-year course with five possibilities in the fourth year: "energy, spacecraft propulsion and engine", "mechanics and aircraft structure", "telecommunications, radar and radio navigation", "embedded systems", or "mechatronics".

From the first year on the school offers lessons relating to aeronautics in addition to basic scientific education, and a large part of the teaching throughout the curriculum is project-based.

Students also have the opportunity to attend a technical and managerial course sanctioned by an MBA in "business and international negotiation" of the Institut supérieur de gestion in addition to the diploma of the school, or to make the last year of studies in a foreign university in partnership with IPSA.

[29] It is also possible to enter the school in the second, third or fourth year of studies for students coming from classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles, Bachelor or Master.

In 2008, a UAVs project named "Hélitronix" and realized by students and researchers of the mechatronics laboratory was selected during the Minidrone challenge funded by DGA and organized by ONERA.

In November 2011, the laboratory of fluid mechanics applied to aerodynamics adopted a new calculation tool allowing for the commissioning of a digital wind tunnel by the end of 2011.