A Local Role in a Global Mission

A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old son Henry did something unusual. For a kid whose attention is typically focused on basketball—playing it, watching it, talking about it—he insisted that our entire family gather around the television to watch the coverage of the splashdown of NASA’s Artemis II. 

As we tuned in, Henry followed along intently, treating it with the same focus he would in a live game. In a house that, like most, is often pulled in different directions, everything paused. We watched together, reacting in real time as the mission unfolded.  Henry was excited to share what he had learned about the astronauts and asked a series of questions, many of which his siblings tried to answer. 

It struck me how special this moment felt.  Much of what fills the 24 hour news cycle these days can be difficult, especially for kids. This was something different—expansive, technical, and, in its own way, hopeful. It served as a reminder that the world is larger than our day-to-day concerns, and that there are still ambitious, complex challenges being pursued at a global scale.

What is less visible in moments like these is how many people—and how many places—are involved in making them possible.

The Artemis missions, led by NASA, represent a return to lunar exploration after more than half a century. They are the result of sustained effort across a wide network of organizations, each contributing highly specialized expertise. The work spans years, often decades, and involves thousands of individuals operating across disciplines, many of whom are far removed from the public spotlight.  Notably, some of that work is happening closer to home than most people might expect.

Right here in Pittsfield, at the Berkshire Innovation Center, Electro Magnetic Applications (EMA) has been contributing to this effort through its work in electromagnetic effects and system verification. EMA has been part of the BIC community for several years, using the facility not just as office space, but as a platform to expand its technical capabilities and collaborate with partners across the region.

EMA’s work is carried out by a team of scientists and engineers operating at the intersection of simulation, testing, and applied research, including Justin McKennon, who has been closely involved in supporting NASA’s Artemis missions and, like many in the field, experienced the recent launch as both a professional milestone and a personal one.

EMA’s role focuses on understanding how spacecraft and critical systems behave in environments that are difficult to replicate and not yet fully understood. As spacecraft travel beyond Earth’s magnetic field, they encounter conditions that introduce new risks, including the buildup of electrical charge. On Earth, we experience a simple version of this when static electricity discharges after walking across a carpet. On the Moon, where the surface material behaves as a high dielectric medium, that same phenomenon becomes significantly more complex, with implications for both equipment performance and astronaut safety.

EMA’s engineers model and simulate these effects, working in collaboration with both NASA teams and private partners to help verify that systems—from spacecraft like Orion to next-generation spacesuits—will perform reliably under those conditions. It is detailed, technical work that takes place long before a mission launches and is largely invisible to the public, but it plays a critical role in reducing risk and enabling progress.

The ability to do that work locally is not accidental. It reflects a broader effort to build infrastructure that supports advanced manufacturing and applied research in the region. At the BIC, that means access to specialized equipment, lab space, and a network of collaborators that companies like EMA can draw on as they grow. It also means serving as a connection point—to state programs, academic institutions, and industry partners—that help translate technical expertise into real-world application.

In EMA’s case, that has included the development of testing and simulation capabilities now being applied to some of the most demanding environments imaginable. Those capabilities were built over time, supported in part by public investment at the state and local level, and refined through ongoing collaboration. The result is a set of tools and expertise that can contribute meaningfully to national efforts like Artemis.

A mission like Artemis is not defined by a single breakthrough, but by the accumulation of many such contributions. It requires coordination across public and private sectors, and across disciplines, to solve problems that often do not have established solutions. In that sense, it reflects not just technological advancement, but the capacity for sustained collaboration.

It also reflects the importance of the labs in which that work takes place. In Massachusetts, and here in the Berkshires, a combination of public investment, institutional partnership, and private sector activity has helped build the capabilities that make this kind of work possible. The facilities, tools, and expertise that support companies like EMA have developed over time through programs designed to support the research and the people with the expertise to drive the work forward.

The result is a regional ecosystem that, while still evolving, is increasingly connected to larger national and global efforts. The idea that a company operating in Pittsfield could contribute to a program of this scale might seem unlikely to some, but it is becoming more common as our regional capabilities continue to grow.

Watching Henry that evening, it was clear that the space mission had made an impression. He may not yet understand the technical details behind what he was seeing, but he understood that it mattered, and that it represented something larger than the moment itself.  What he—and others his age—will come to understand over time is that the path to participating in work like this is not confined to a single geography. It is shaped by access to education, exposure to real-world applications, and the presence of organizations engaged in meaningful, forward-looking work.

Moments like this do more than showcase what is possible at a global scale. They remind us that the work behind them is distributed in ways that are not always visible—and that, increasingly, some of that work is happening here, creating a path for the next generation to step into it.