LAIKA AEROSPACE

Founded three years ago at the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica (ESIME) Ticomán of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) in Mexico City, LAIKA AEROSPACE is a non-profit experimental rocketry student team composed of students from Aeronautical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Electrical, Electronics, and Systems Engineering. The team is driven by a shared passion for aerospace technology and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of rocket engineering in Mexico.

Over the past three years, the team has built solid technical expertise across all major rocket subsystems, competing in the Latin American Space Challenge (LASC), one of the most prestigious rocketry competitions in the region. This experience has allowed LAIKA AEROSPACE to grow not only technically, but also as a collaborative and multidisciplinary team capable of tackling the real-world challenges of aerospace engineering.

One of our current projects is P.E.G.A.S.I, a custom flight computer designed for active control systems in high-power rockets, with a primary focus on roll control. The system is built around two microcontrollers working in coordination to handle real-time sensor data processing, control surface actuation, and flight data logging. The avionics architecture is distributed across two distinct PCBs:

1. Main Flight Computer Board This board hosts the primary microcontroller responsible for flight state estimation, active roll control logic, and communication between subsystems. It integrates inertial measurement units (IMU), a barometric altimeter, and interfaces for actuator control, enabling real-time stabilization during flight.

2. Ground Station Board This board is the ground-side counterpart of the avionics system, responsible for receiving real-time telemetry transmitted from the rocket during flight. It handles data acquisition, signal decoding, and communication with the ground operator interface, allowing the team to monitor flight parameters such as altitude, orientation, and system status in real time from the launch site.

PCBWay's support would be instrumental in allowing LAIKA AEROSPACE to manufacture, iterate, and validate these boards within the tight timelines of competition preparation. Quick and reliable PCB prototyping would enable our team members to gain hands-on design experience and accelerate development cycles. Given the complexity of our boards and the miniaturized components involved, we would also deeply appreciate the possibility of accessing PCBWay's assembly services, which would allow us to ensure the quality and reliability required for flight-ready electronics. We are committed to representing PCBWay's brand in our competitions, social media, and academic presentations, and we look forward to the opportunity of growing together.