Relatively few federal agencies have guides for assessing a technology’s maturity and its readiness for integration into larger acquisition programs. Development of cutting-edge technologies is critical to many of the government’s most costly acquisitions, including new weapons, satellites, nuclear facilities, and homeland security systems. Technology readiness assessments (TRA) are used to evaluate the maturity of technologies and whether these technologies are adequately developed to be integrated into a system so that it can move into production with minimal risk. Technologies that are not adequately mature have led to program delays and cost increases.