NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has urged 22 member countries in the European Space Agency to extend their partnership with the U.S. to continue supporting the International Space Station to 2024, Space News reported Thursday.

Peter de Selding writes Bolden spoke before ESA’s ruling council ahead of a scheduled meeting in December, where agency members will vote on whether to extend their participation in the ISS program through at least 2020 and potentially 2024.

Bolden told the council ESA’s partnership will support research and technology demonstrations that work to aid humans beyond low-Earth orbit, de Selding quoted.

Bolden noted other ISS partners such as the U.S., Russia, Japan and Canada have committed to support ISS operations until 2024.

In December 2014, ESA governments declined to commit an extension of its partnership with ISS through 2020.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is set to appoint Thomas Murphy, acting principal deputy undersecretary of the Veterans Benefits Administration, as acting undersecretary for benefits at VBA.

He will succeed Danny Pummill, who will depart from the benefits undersecretary post that he has held on an acting basis since October 2015, and will also serve as principal deputy undersecretary for benefits, the VA said Thursday.

Murphy previously directed VBA’s compensation service as well as its San Juan Regional Office in Puerto Rico.

Pummill joined VBA in 2010 as the deputy director for policy and procedures for compensation service before he moved into the role as director of the VBA/Defense Department Program Office two years later and as principal deputy undersecretary for benefits in 2013.

He also spent 33 years at the U.S. Army as a soldier and an officer and later worked as a civilian employee at the Department of the Army for five years.

National Science Foundation Biological Anthropology Program Director Rebecca Ferrell and Sgt. Troy Lawrence – director of the digital forensic lab for Fort Worth, Texas’ police department — will join the National Commission on Forensic Science that develops policy recommendations for the attorney general.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology said Thursday Ferrell and Lawrence will replace outgoing commissioner Mark Weiss and fellow former member Bill Crane, who will relocate to a new overseas position.

“Since its inception, the commission has benefitted from the contributions of some of America’s most prominent scientists and forensic practitioners,” NIST Director Willie May said.

“I have no doubt that our newest commissioners will continue this proud tradition as we work together to strengthen the science that underpins the forensic evidence used in the U.S. judicial system.”

May and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates co-chair the commission that includes federal, state and local forensic science service providers as well as research scientists, academics, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and other stakeholders from across the country.

NASA‘s Juno spacecraft will work to arrive at Jupiter on July 4 for a series of planned flybys to probe beneath the planet’s clouded atmosphere and examine its auroras.

The solar-powered aircraft will conduct 37 close approaches to study the planet’s auroras in efforts to learn more about Jupiter’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, NASA said Friday.

Juno’s flattened oval orbit was designed to support the orbit as it follows a trajectory in the spacecraft’s approach to Jupiter’s north pole and drop below the planet’s radiation belts towards it south pole.

“Over the life of the mission, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of over 100 million dental X-rays,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno’s project manager, said.

According to Nybakken, Juno’s orbit will help minimize radiation exposure so Juno can survive through the mission and gather data needed to study the planet.

Juno is outfitted with special radiation-hardened electrical wiring and sensor shields and a titanium vault to protect its flight computer from the extreme radiation produced by Jupiter’s quick rotation and layer of hydrogen underneath its Jovian cloud layer.

NASA launched Juno in August 2011 as part of the agency’s New Frontiers Program.