NASA is requesting agencies, organizations and members of the public review and provide comments on a draft environmental impact statement for NASA’s Sounding Rockets Program at the Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska.

Prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, the draft EIS evaluates the environmental impacts of five alternative means for continuing sounding rocket launches at the research range.

The public comment period runs through Nov. 28, 2012, and the draft EIS is available at this website: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code250/pfrr_eis.html

In addition, printed copies of the draft EIS are available at the following locations:

* Alaska Resources Library & Information Services, Anchorage, Alaska

* Z.J. Loussac Public Library, Anchorage, Alaska

* Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska

* Noel Wien Library, Fairbanks, Alaska

* Juneau Public Library, Juneau, Alaska

* NASA Headquarters Library, Washington, D.C.

A limited number of printed copies are also available, on a first request basis, by contacting the project point of contact listed below. Furthermore, NASA has scheduled the following public meetings to provide information on the sounding rockets program at Poker Flat and to obtain comments on the draft EIS:

* Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012, at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Regional Office, Gordon Watson Conference Room, 1011 East Tudor Road, Anchorage, Alaska, 6 to 8 p.m.

* Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, at the Bureau of Land Management Fairbanks District Office, 1150 University Avenue, Fairbanks, Alaska, 6 to 8 p.m.

Times and locations of additional meetings, particularly those with interior Villages, will be coordinated with the respective governing bodies and published locally as they are scheduled. Requests for copies, questions or comments on the draft EIS may be submitted either by e-mail, mail, telephone or fax to:

Joshua A. Bundick
Manager, Poker Flat Research Range EIS
NASA Wallops Flight Facility (Code 250.W)
Wallops Island, VA 23337
Phone: (757) 824-2319
Fax: (757) 824-1819
Joshua.A.Bundick@nasa.gov

For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation for the meetings, please call (757) 824-2319. A toll-free telephone number, (800) 521-3415, is also available for those outside the local calling area. When using the toll-free number, please follow the menu options and enter the pound sign (#) followed by extension numbers “2319.”

Owned and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 1968, Poker Flat Research Range is a launch range for NASA sounding rockets carrying scientific instruments to regions of the upper atmosphere and space. As the only high-latitude range in the United States capable of supporting launch trajectories toward the north, many of the rocket experiments are dedicated to the continued research of the aurora borealis and other upper atmospheric phenomena.

For more information about NASA’s Sounding Rockets Program, see:
http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code810

For more information about the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Poker Flat Research Range, see:
http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu