About PARI
Deep in the Pisgah National Forest, two enormous 26-meter radio dishes rise above a campus that looks wildly out of place among the mountains. This is PARI, the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, but the site began with a much more secretive purpose.
NASA opened the Rosman Tracking Station in 1963 as one of the best-equipped stations in its Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network. Its antennas communicated with satellites and crewed space flights passing over the East Coast. The Department of Defense later used the facility during the Cold War before federal operations ended in 1995.
Rather than demolishing the complex, Don and Jo Cline acquired the roughly 200-acre site in 1998 and established PARI. Much of the heavy infrastructure survived, including the huge radio dishes. The campus now supports scientific research, satellite communications, education, archives, exhibits, and public programs.
PARI still feels like a government tracking station that someone forgot to remove from the mountains. Access is controlled, cellular service can be poor, and research or private events can affect public visitation. Visitors should check the official calendar or contact PARI before driving to the gate.