Local officials on the Hawaiian island of Maui voted to oppose a U.S. military proposal to build new telescopes on the summit of Haleakala volcano. The U.S. Space Force and Air Force want to construct a new facility on the top of Haleakala to track objects in space. The Maui County Council passed a resolution opposing the project, citing the summit's sacred significance for religious ceremony and spiritual practices of Native Hawaiians. They also mentioned the Space Force's failure to clean up a diesel fuel spill at the site of one of its existing telescopes on Haleakala.

The proposed new facility, named AMOS STAR, would consist of six telescopes enclosed in ground-mounted domes and one rooftop-mounted domed telescope. The county resolution called on the military to halt development efforts and requested other regulatory agencies to deny project permits.

Haleakala's peak offers ideal conditions for space observation, similar to Mauna Kea on the Big Island, which houses several telescopes. Haleakala already hosts University of Hawaii observatories and the Maui Space Surveillance Complex. In the past, protests failed to stop the construction of a new observatory on Haleakala, leading to the release of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope's first images in 2020. Another telescope project on Mauna Kea, the Thirty Meter Telescope, faced massive protests in 2019 and is currently on hold awaiting funding from the National Science Foundation.