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I design boards for rockets. Is there a guideline for determining what components should be staked? I have found information on how to stake, but not what to stake.
Ok, so I’ve asked around at Sierra and our engineers tell me that they don’t know the answer because we’re always told what to do regarding this.
I have sent your question to a couple of aerospace experts I know and will update you if they can reply.
Sorry… 
@rrix Do you have shock / vibe requirements and access to a good mechanical engineer @ your rocket company? This is a mechanical design question and not a question I’d expect a fab house to be able to answer.
I’d expect your ME to be able to help you with if stakings required & for which packages.
Quite generally in aerospace, staking and conformal coating happen together. Staking usually is required for the larger packages on a PWA. Especially leaded hermetic/ceramic packages, large BGAs / CCGAs on the corners/edges, large transformers, connectors, through hole discretes, etc. Things I wouldnt expect to get staked are SMD caps/resistors, small plastic QFNs/SOICs/BGAs, ferrite beads, etc.
One will typically perform analysis to determine what should get staked, stake them, and then test shock/vibe with a qualification assembly to prove the design will survive the environment.
Best of luck.
Thanks, Andrew!!
Perhaps the best place to look for standards describing things designed for space can be found here:
These standards are free to download and cover pretty much anything one might think of, and many others that might be less apparent.
From my experience, none of the boards I’ve designed for this market have needed staking, but that’s just because of the nature of those boards. Have a look on the ECSS website and you should find your answers there.