Of the roughly $5.3 billion approved for NOAA as part of a $52 billion Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, about $2 billion would go toward satellite and ground systems procurement.

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Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...