Deep in the Pisgah National Forest near Rosman in Transylvania County, giant radio telescopes are about to point at the moon.
The Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, known as PARI, is one of 34 organizations worldwide selected by NASA to help track the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II mission. The first crewed launch of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft is targeted to lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 6:24 p.m. EDT Wednesday.
It's a milestone that feels personal for the people who work at PARI.
"This site being involved with this kind of work again after so many years is really exciting," said Timothy DeLisle, PARI's director of software engineering and head of education. "It kind of brings us back to our roots."
Those roots run deep. NASA built the Rosman Satellite Tracking Station in 1962, supporting satellite communications and crewed missions including the Apollo program. In 1981 the National Security Agency took over, turning it into a top-secret intelligence gathering facility. The government closed it in 1995 and the site faced demolition.
But a Greensboro couple saved it, purchasing the property from the U.S. Forest Service and establishing PARI as a nonprofit organization focused on science research and education.
Now, more than 60 years after NASA first switched on those satellite dishes, the agency is back.
Once the mission is underway, one of PARI's 26-meter radio telescopes will slowly swing into position and lock onto the Orion spacecraft as it arcs around the moon. As Orion travels through space, PARI's giant telescope dish will catch and focus radio waves from the craft. These signals are turned into data, helping NASA track the mission's path
"One of the really important things when you're sending a spacecraft somewhere is to make sure it's moving the way you want it to move," DeLisle said in an interview with BPR "Tracking Doppler shift from the ground is an important part of doing that."
Staff will be on site around the clock in rotating shifts, and actively monitoring the telescopes.
"You have to make adjustments in real time to what's actually going on," DeLisle said. "These instruments are 60 years old. They've been well maintained, but they can still get a little cranky."
For PARI, the Artemis II selection is also a chance to demonstrate what the facility can do during a moment when that matters. DeLisle says the number of spacecraft in orbit is growing faster than the ground infrastructure needed to support them.
"There's more stuff out there that needs to be communicated with than there are currently ground stations to do the work," he said. "What we're hoping is this is going to lead to us being utilized more for this kind of work in the future."
Beyond its role in the mission, PARI remains one of Western North Carolina's most unusual public resources. The nearly 200-acre campus hosts summer camps for students of all ages, public stargazing nights, school field trips and private events under some of the darkest skies in the state. The facility has exhibits that include NASA Space Shuttle artifacts, meteorite samples and a collection of thousands of astronomical glass plate negatives dating to the late 19th century.
"Our primary goal is to make the tools and experiences of space science accessible to a wide range of people," DeLisle said. "People can come here, dig into what makes space science so interesting and get to do some of it themselves."
Interested in learning more? The Astronomy Club of Asheville is hosting a free public talk by DeLisle on PARI's role in the Artemis II mission.
What: Tracking Artemis II's Orion Spacecraft When: Thursday, April 2, 7-8:30 p.m. Where: UNC Asheville Reuter Center, also available via Zoom Info: astroasheville.org
