What This Means

If this bill is passed, it will send a strong message to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before it releases next year's 2014 budget. We've heard rumors that the cuts to Planetary Science were set to continue (due to the lack of Congressional direction on the issue). A real funding bill which restores the vast majority of cuts may send a strong-enough signal to the OMB to accept that Congress (and the people!) is committed to Planetary Science. It's very late in the 2014 budget process, though, so there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

With increased funding to key programs, NASA can start to rebuild its Planetary Sciences program. An increased Discovery budget would surely mean an increased frequency of small missions, perhaps moving the next mission opportunity to 2014 (instead of 2015). Increased funding to the Mars Exploration program would help kick start development of Mars 2020 and all-but-guarantee extended missions for our current slate of spacecraft on and around the Red Planet.

It also brings us another step closer to a mission to Europa, though this is still very uncertain given the small investment here. I consider this enough to keep the embers alive on this mission until real funding becomes available.

Sequestration

This bill does nothing to reverse Sequestration. NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which is the parent division of Planetary Science, will face a cut of 8.2%, but NASA is free to spread the total savings unequally between Earth Science, Heliophysics, Astrophysics, JWST, and Planetary Science. No one is quite sure about the details here.

What's Next

We face multiple hurdles before this bill becomes law. The Senate must vote to pass this bill. Since it differs from the House's funding bill, the House either needs to approve the Senate version or they must go into conference to produce a compromise bill. This all needs to happen within the next two weeks to avert a government shutdown. This is why I'm cautious. A lot can (and will) happen before we can truly celebrate.

But remember, there is still a lot of work to be done here. Even if this total amount gets restored, it's really hitting the $1.5 billion level that will allow a real start to a Europa mission and more resources towards research (to support the scientific community) and increased frequency of mid-sized, New Frontiers missions.

We also need to be ready to react to the Administration's 2014 budget, which will be released sometime in early April. If they insist on maintaining the cut, we will insist that Congress restore it, again.

Update 2013-03-12 02:50pm PDT - The Senate calls "backsies" on 1.877% of the Budget:

Buried on page 580 of the actual Senate bill [pdf] is an unpleasant surprise: an additional cut of 1.877% to NASA's budget (and many other agencies). According to an analysis by NASA staff: