WASHINGTON — NASA Associate Administrator Chris Scolese, the agency’s third in command and top-ranking civil servant, is returning to Goddard Space Flight Center to serve as director of the Greenbelt, Md., lab.

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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...