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There’s a keystone in Every Great Eclipse.

Battery Contacts & Holders	Screw Terminals & Terminal blocks	Spacers & Standoffs	PC Board Hardware

The total lunar eclipse of March 2–3, 2026 was a rarity as it was the last total lunar eclipse we’ll see until late 2028. The eclipse turned the full moon into a deep red “blood moon” as the Earth’s shadow completely covered the moon’s surface. When the Earth lined up directly between the sun and the moon, Earth blocked the direct sunlight from the moon. Only light filtered through Earth’s atmosphere was able to reach the moon, bending the remaining red and orange hues onto the lunar surface. The result was a coppery globe hanging in the night sky, that was visible this year across much of Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and the Americas.

The eclipse is a reminder that our planet is part of a larger, precisely choreographed system of motions and shadows. A total lunar eclipse dramatically shows the Earth, moon, and sun in perfect alignment. This year’s early March total lunar eclipse offered a view of the same orbital dynamics and celestial mechanics that every engineer must calculate when sending hardware into space and beyond. Today, in addition to the naked eye, binoculars and personal telescopes, we study eclipses via ground-based instruments, imaging equipment, satellites, probes, and spacecraft.

Spacecraft at or Near the Moon

Several lunar missions have used total eclipses for natural experiments on lunar surface temperature and spacecraft operations including:

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO): During eclipses, most instruments are powered down to survive the temporary loss of solar power, but NASA has previously kept the Diviner radiometer running to measure how quickly the moon’s surface cools in sudden shadow, providing data on the uppermost regolith layer and “cold spots” near craters.

Lunar landers (e.g., Blue Ghost): Solar-powered landers must ride out eclipse-triggered darkness using batteries and thermal control; mission teams sometimes plan to capture imagery of the eclipse from the surface while monitoring how hardware copes with the rapid temperature drop.

Spacecraft in Orbit

Space-based platforms also study or document total lunar eclipses. NASA has used nighttime satellite sensors to track how the brightness of moonlit Earth changes during an eclipse, helping validate models of moonlight and atmospheric scattering. Similar spacecraft use eclipses to test power and thermal margins while collecting imaging or thermal data when possible.

Astronauts on the International Space Station view and photograph eclipses, capturing how the moon’s appearance changes when seen above most of the atmosphere. Sun- and space-weather spacecraft utilize instruments to observe the Sun and gather eclipse data to help understand how changing illumination affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The Unseen Infrastructure of Spaceflight

Inside the spacecraft, vehicles, satellites, and instruments, beyond the view of any telescope, are densely packed circuit boards and power systems held together by precision hardware. 

Behind every one of those missions is an intricate ecosystem of electronics that must survive launch vibration, vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperature swings.

Spacers, standoffs, PCB brackets, battery holders, and test points help keep those systems mechanically stable and electrically reliable in the harshest launch and in-orbit conditions. Modern lunar missions, satellites, and deep-space probes all depend on rugged, reliable electronics and their boards to stay rigid and precisely spaced, power to be delivered cleanly, and signals to stay intact despite launch vibration, vacuum, and temperature swings.

Keystone designs and manufactures precision interconnect components and hardware, spacers and standoffs, PCB brackets and hardware, battery clips and holders, test points, and terminals blocks, used by OEMs in aerospace environments and other demanding commercial and industrial applications.