Progress Update from Aetherspace! 
Hi AISLER Community!
It’s been an intense and exciting couple of months for us at Aetherspace (KU Leuven, Belgium). As we prepare for our Aether: T-ReX 3U re-entry CubeSat demonstrator mission on REXUS 17, hardware is moving rapidly off the workbench and into our spacecraft assembly!
Later this month, our team faces a huge milestone in the REXUS/BEXUS campaign: the Integration Progress Review. Before we present our progress to the panel, we wanted to share a look at what we’ve been building!
Mechanical Subsystems: Reaching Near 100% Completion!
A major focus over the past few months has been translating our mechanical and thermal designs into physical flight hardware. We’re thrilled to report that our mechanical systems are practically complete!
Inflatable Heat Shield Fully Assembled
Our re-entry demonstrator relies on an inflatable heat shield to survive the descent back to Earth. The heat shield has been fully assembled! All thermal protection layers are now joined together and awaiting final integration into the Free Falling Unit.
Custom Ejection Mechanism
Because we are ejected from a sounding rocket at an altitude of 80–90 km, reliable deployment is critical. We designed a completely custom ejection system from scratch.
Manufacturing is officially complete, and the system is now proudly sitting in our office ready for testing and then lift-off! Together with our completed structural frame and nose cone, our primary mechanical structures are locked in.
Electronics: From ECAD to Board in Record Time 
On the electronics front, we’ve been busy bringing several critical boards to life. One thing we absolutely love about working with AISLER is how lightning-fast and seamless it is to go from our PCB design tools straight to manufactured boards. That rapid iteration cycle has been a game-changer for our flight timeline!
Here is a quick snapshot of the custom PCBs we’ve been developing with AISLER:
Inflation System PCB: Designed to handle safe, high-reliability switching to trigger the pyrotechnic Cool Gas Generators that inflate the heat shield shortly after ejection, as well as acquiring scientific data collected from many sensors.
Turnstile Antenna PCBs: A custom turnstile antenna board engineered to ensure reliable RF communications during re-entry and descent.
Rocket-Mounted PCB: Custom electronics mounted directly onto the rocket bulkhead to manage critical interfaces prior to ejection.
Parachute System Progress
Our recovery sequence doesn’t end with the heat shield. The electronics also interface with our Parachute Deployment System, which has seen great strides recently and has already undergone initial mechanical deployment tests to ensure a soft landing back on Earth.
The Countdown to March 2027 Continues
With the Integration Progress Review just weeks away, we’re seeing all of the schematics, mechanical models, and code come together into a physical spacecraft ready for flight.
A huge thank you to AISLER for continuously supporting our rapid development cycle with fast, high-quality PCB manufacturing!
Stay tuned for more updates as we move into environmental testing! 
If you have any questions about Aether and what we are doing, drop a comment below, we’d love to chat!
The REXUS/BEXUS programme is realised under a bilateral Agency Agreement between the German Space Agency at DLR and the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA). The Swedish share of the payload has been made available to students from other European countries through a collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).