>>509227454 (OP)the sat funding was pulled over a decade ago and the functionality was moved to a successor satellite observation system. the difference is free/open access to the sat data was not part of the new system. the only change is people have to pay for the data now instead of it being free. no big deal--commerical use of the data by insurance companies and weather channels is good to help fund these programs; meanwhile public safety use by organizations like noaa will remain unaffected.