NASA will end the Earth science mission of the U.S.-German Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite duo in November after 15 years worth of service in space, Space News reported Wednesday.

The GRACE satellite duo will conduct a final science collection mission in mid-October to early November prior to its decommissioning.

Alan Buis, spokesman for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the decommissioning activities of the GRACE spacecraft will involve steps to make the satellites inert.

Buis added that GRACE will begin its uncontrolled reentry to Earth in early 2018 and most of the spacecraft will burn during its descent with only a few small pieces anticipated to reach the ground.

The report noted that the GRACE satellites have faced various challenges including connection losses, power failures and potential fuel depletion.

NASA will launch the GRACE Follow On pair of replacement satellites which feature an integrated laser interferometer designed to boost the accuracy of separation measurements.

Iridium signed a rideshare agreement with SpaceX in January to launch the NASA and GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences’ GRACE-FO satellites alongside five Iridium NEXT satellites in early 2018.

The White House plans to transfer oversight of exports of nonmilitary firearms from the State Department to the Commerce Department in an effort to generate jobs, address government red tape and increase small arms sales overseas, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Senior U.S. officials told Reuters the Trump administration could publicly announce a new firearm export policy this fall and implement it by the first half of 2018.

One official said the Trump administration could potentially submit the draft version of the rules to the Office of Management and Budget within days for evaluation.

“The [National Security Council] is working through the interagency process with the State Department and the Department of Commerce to ensure that U.S. industries have every advantage in the global marketplace, while at the same time ensuring the responsible export of arms,” said an official with NSC.

The Hill reported Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging him to carefully assess the consequences before introducing changes to International Trafficking in Arms regulations for small arms, ammunition and light weapons.

“Combat firearms and ammunition are uniquely lethal” and “should be subject to more – not less – rigorous export controls and oversight,” the senators added.

Scott Blackburn, acting deputy secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs, has been appointed to serve as VA’s chief information officer and assistant secretary for information and technology on an interim basis, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.

Blackburn will succeed Rob Thomas, who is due to retire in October after more than 35 years of federal government service.

Thomas was named CIO of the department when LaVerne Council left the post in January due to the change in administration.

Blackburn joined VA in 2014 and led the MyVA Task Force with the goal to optimize customer service for the country’s military veterans.

He served as a partner at management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, where he supported customers’ transformational change programs in areas such as manufacturing, purchasing, organizational design, leadership development, supply chain and others.

The Library of Congress has launched a new website built to foster the creative use of the Library’s digital collections on experiments, projects, events and other resources.

The institution said Tuesday the labs.loc.gov space will have a gallery on projects, blog posts and video presentations from data challenge winners and innovators-in residence in a move to encourage potential discoveries.

LOC noted that the labs website provides visitors with an opportunity to participate in experimental applications and crowdsourcing programs as well as tutorials that aim to promote computational discovery.

“With labs, we hope to create a community dedicated to using technology to expand what’s possible with the world’s creative and intellectual treasures,” said Kate Zwaard, chief of the Library of Congress’ National Digital Initiatives office.

Labs currently features a crowdsourcing program called Beyond Words which works to find partners that can identify cartoons from historic newspapers and convert the images into searchable data.

The Library noted that it also utilized various industry standards to develop application programming interfaces that can boost the accessibility of various digital collections.