SAN FRANCISCO — NASA needs to raise $1.2 billion by late 2012 from the U.S. Department of Defense or other government agencies to ensure that its fleet of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) can continue to communicate with spacecraft in near-Earth orbit beyond 2016, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...