Thirty Meter Telescope

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state broke the law when it took control of the Mauna Kea Access Road on the Big Island and turned it into a state highway before the 2019 Thirty Meter Telescope protests.

The National Science Foundation has until September to decide on advancing the Thirty Meter Telescope to the final design stage. The TMT is competing against a telescope project in Chile for limited NSF funding.

Funding for the Thirty Meter Telescope may be in jeopardy following a decision by the National Science Foundation board to place a $1.6 billion budget cap on giant telescope projects.

For the first time in Hawaiʻi's 50-year history with astronomy, observatories will be removed from Maunakea. First up is the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Most of the instruments have already been removed, but the telescope's 34-foot diameter primary mirror remains. The Conversation's Russell Subiono has more.

Law enforcement arrested 38 mostly Native Hawaiian elders during a 2019 demonstration against the Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Maunakea. Of these, 30 had their cases dismissed.

The Conversation talked to Kealoha Pisciotta, spokesperson for the Mauna Kea Hui, about seeing Maunakea through the environmental justice lens. Pisciotta says she was happy to hear the EPA's stance on Maunakea.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is urging the National Science Foundation to consider alternative construction sites for the Thirty Meter Telescope in its upcoming review of the project.

The physical deconstruction of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on Maunakea is set to begin by the end of the summer. Complete removal of the telescope and restoration of the land is expected within a year.

The National Science Foundation says it will conduct a study to evaluate the environmental effects of building one of the world’s largest optical telescopes on sites selected in Hawaiʻi and Spain's Canary Islands.

The state Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously approved a Conservation District Use Permit for the telescope’s decommissioning.