The NSF FARE Planner Tool is a web-based portal developed and maintained by NSF NCAR's Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) in collaboration with Maas Software. It allows scientists to request observing facilities and instrumentation from the NSF Facilities for Atmospheric Research and Education (FARE) Program, supporting the full lifecycle of a request — from the initial submission of a Statement of Interest through document exchange between PIs and facility operators.

The FARE Planner is the required entry point for requesting NCAR-managed facilities and instruments. 

While other FARE partner institutions maintain their own individual request forms, the FARE Planner provides a single, unified interface for accessing the full portfolio of FARE-sponsored assets regardless of managing institution, a significant advantage for projects requiring facilities from more than one partner, as it consolidates what would otherwise be a complex, multi-channel coordination process. The tool guides investigators through a structured set of online forms to ensure all required documentation is collected at the appropriate stage of the request process.

The platform also streamlines data management compliance by automatically prompting researchers with the required data management questions during the request process. This reflects the broader requirement that all NSF-funded field campaigns using FARE assets must archive and manage their data through NCAR's Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), which serves as the designated data manager for these campaigns.

Registered users can submit Statements of Interest and facility requests, upload required documentation such as Experiment Plans and Data Management Plans, and download facility provider-prepared feasibility assessments and cost estimates needed for FIRP proposal submissions. The platform also hosts the published FARE Program deployment schedule, which is publicly viewable without an account.

Partner institutions accessible through the tool include NSF NCAR, the University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, Clemson University, Michigan Technological University, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Utah, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Stony Brook University.