Just days before the start of their summer recess, the U.S. Congress passed a 2-year bipartisan budget that prevented self-imposed, destructive spending cuts for both defense and non-defense agencies. President Trump signed the bill, H.R. 3877, into law on 2 August.

Relative to 2019, the bill increases spending caps (a.k.a "budget authority") for all non-defense discretionary accounts by $27 billion and defense-related programs by $20 billion. For fiscal year 2021, these amounts will grow by a meager $3 billion and $5 billion, respectively.

Absent this legislation, federal agencies faced a crippling $125 billion cut in fiscal year 2020—an outcome of the Budget Control Act (BCA) passed in 2011, which imposed automatic cuts (a "sequester") if Congress was unable to limit spending. Congress only allowed the BCA to come into full effect once, in fiscal year 2013, exempting itself from the BCA's spending limits, to varying degrees, every year since.

The latest budget deal does not directly set spending levels for NASA. However, it does increase the size of the budgetary pie, making it easier for the space agency to receive a bigger slice during the appropriations process later this year.

There are two issues at play, however, that will complicate this.

The first, of course, is Project Artemis. The Trump Administration sent a surprise supplemental budget request to Congress in support of an accelerated human lunar effort, proposing an additional $1.6 billion for Artemis in 2020. In total, the White House's budget request for NASA is $22.6 billion, a 5% increase over 2019. This budget also proposes the cancellation of the WFIRST space telescope, NASA's entire STEM outreach/education division, and several Earth science missions.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives responded by passing their own funding legislation for NASA in 2020. It also increased NASA's budget by about 5%—to $22.3 billion—restoring all the programs cut by the Trump Administration and providing no additional funds for Artemis. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), chair of the House subcommittee responsible for funding NASA, recently reiterated his skepticism of Artemis and its goal to land humans on the Moon by 2024.