The awards recognize federal employees "whose performance and dedication support exceptional delivery of key outcomes for the American people: mission results, customer service, and accountable stewardship."

The 10-year contract provides system integration, administration, operations and support services to the agency’s supercomputing infrastructure.

The nominees included federal employees that used data innovation to track Zika, developed air traffic control systems for drones and mitigated the impact of WannaCry.

NOAA is looking for small businesses that might be able to help with the IT security of its ground-based data centers and systems, and the data flow of everything between them and its satellites.

Officials offered new details on NOAA's anticipated IT services contract, stressing the need for industry partners as a key component.

Capt. Phil Hall, an emerging technologies officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said it was always "clear" to NOAA that drones should be classified as aircraft.