State boards · The Environmental Notice · June 23, 2026

HI-SEAS Habitat Project – Final EA (FONSI)

Environmental review · Hawaiʻi · North Hilo

Tax map key, as printed

(3) 3-8-001:001

Agency, as printed

State of Hawaiʻi, University of Hawai`i

Permits, as printed

Conservation District Use Permit and State Forest Reserve Special Use Permit

Status, as printed

Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) determination

Area

North Hilo (placed by the tax map key it prints)

The state's document

The Environmental Notice, June 23, 2026 (PDF)

The University of Hawaiʻi with support from NASA seeks to resume research at an analog habitat site at the 8,090-ft elevation on Mauna Loa. The 0.5-acre site is on State Conservation District land at a previously graded and quarried area of a cinder cone that resembles the surface of Mars. Operations from 2013-2024 built a portable 900-sf structure similar to one that might be built on Mars. Research focused on operational and psychological issues that astronauts will experience as they explore the solar system. A crew of researchers lived in the habitat for months at a time, where mission length, distance from Earth, the size and functionality of the living space, communication delays and latency, and the characteristics of in-flight and surface extravehicular activities were simulated. New proposed features include a 1,000-gallon propane tank to supplement solar power as necessary, modular plant- growth chambers for food and oxygen production, and a low solar angle illumination set-up to simulate lunar conditions for 1- to 3-hour night missions up to 12 times a year. A Conservation District Use Permit is required.

Basis. Read from the issue's PDF by script (pipeline/fetch_environmental_notice.py), published by the State of Hawaiʻi Office of Planning and Sustainable Development; first on the record Sept. 19, 2026. Wording is the notice's; contact names, telephone numbers and email addresses are not carried. Corrections: the corrections log.