Measuring technology maturity and readiness for mission infusion

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are an important metric used by United States Government agencies such as NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) and are designed to quantify the maturity of new technologies and to enable comparisons with alternatives. To date they have proven to be useful in identifying whether new components developed under technology programs are ready for transition to operations as mature products. However as components are reused across new systems and systems are reused as components of still-larger systems, the ability for a simple scalar to properly represent all required aspects of technology transition becomes more difficult. In addition TRLs have traditionally been used to assess hardware readiness, however as the requirements for space missions broaden they are increasingly being used to assess software as well. We identify some of the concerns associated with the implementation of TRL assessments, discuss new mitigation strategies being deployed by NASA´s Earth Science Division (ESD), and examine a case in which they were recently deployed. We also discuss apparent shortcomings evident in software TRL definitions and use and propose suggestions for enhancement.