NASA plans to present a Mars robotic exploration architecture at a National Academies panel meeting to be held in late August, Space News reported Monday.

Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said the new Mars architecture will support sample return missions and that he is working to get “agency endorsement” of the proposed architecture before the August presentation.

The August meeting seeks to evaluate NASA’s efforts to implement the 2011 planetary science decadal survey.

“We’re on the hook to present something because this is actually something that Congress has asked for in their appropriations,” he said during a teleconference meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group Monday.

NASA’s budget request for fiscal 2018 allocated $2.9 million in funds for future exploration missions to Mars such as follow-on Mars 2020 rover missions and development plans for a new orbiter, the report added.

The General Services Administration will notify industry on Tuesday regarding its decision to call off the agency’s search for a new FBI headquarters, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The cancellation came four months after GSA postponed the announcement of its selected site for the new FBI building until it secures congressional funds and less than a month after House appropriators revoked the proposed $200 million in funds for the project.

Some government officials said the lack of permanent administrators at GSA and FBI could have thwarted efforts to secure funds for the new headquarters, the report noted.

FBI and GSA considered Springfield, Virginia, as well as Landover and Greenbelt in Maryland as candidate sites for the bureau’s new facility.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released draft guidance meant to help public and private sector entities identify system elements that must remain active in order to fulfill organizational missions.

NIST said Monday its Criticality Analysis Process Model document offers a step-by-step guide on how to analyze critical parts of a system and seeks to help organizations maintain infrastructure and functions without exceeding previously set budgets.

“This draft report shows people how to perform a criticality analysis that’s tailored to their organization,” said Jon Boyens, an NIST cybersecurity expert and co-author of the report.

“We are developing this for the government, but we want it to be friendly and useful for the private sector,” Boyens added.

NIST noted that criticality analysis helps identify high-value assets and modify traditional risk assessment procedures to help prepare an organization for what potential threats can do.

The agency will collect public feedback on the guidance through Aug. 18.

NASA will award grants to 22 universities to research and develop technology in areas such as remote sensing, nanotechnology, astrophysics and aeronautics.

The agency said Friday it may incorporate research results from the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research into ongoing Earth science, aeronautics and deep space exploration work.

Thirteen universities will get up to $750,000 each to carry out a three-year project while nine universities will receive approximately $900,000 and an opportunity to test their research on the International Space Station.

EPSCoR helps forge partnerships among academic institutions, industry and NASA’s research missions and programs through grants.

The list of awardees can be found on NASA’s website.

A presidential commission established through an executive order signed in May will download and store requested voter-roll data on White House computers under the guidance of Vice President Mike Pence’s office, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, disclosed the plan in a court filing in response to a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center.

EPIC asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to bar all voter data requests until evaluation of the potential impact on citizens’ privacy is completed.

Kollar-Kotelly was expected to decide Friday on the appeal for a temporary restraining order with regard to voter data requests.

Kobach said in the court filing that Pence chairs the presidential commission and named other members of the panel.

Those include Connie Lawson, Indiana secretary of state; Bill Gardner, New Hampshire secretary of state; Matthew Dunlap, Maine secretary of state; Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state; Christy McCormick, commissioner with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; David Dunn, former Arkansas state representative; Mark Rhodes, clerk of Wood County, West Virginia; and Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow of the Heritage Foundation.