Technology Readiness Level Assessment Process as Applied to NASA Earth Science Missions

Abstract

Technology assessments of fourteen science instruments were conducted within NASA using the NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Metric. The instruments were part of three NASA Earth Science Decadal Survey missions in pre-formulation. The Earth Systematic Missions Program (ESMP) Systems Engineering Working Group (SEWG), composed of members of three NASA Centers, provided a newly modified electronic workbook to be completed, with instructions. Each instrument development team performed an internal assessment of its technology status, prepared an overview of its instrument, and completed the workbook with the results of its assessment. A team from the ESMP SEWG met with each instrument team and provided feedback. The instrument teams then reported through the Program Scientist for their respective missions to NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) on technology readiness, taking the SEWG input into account. The instruments were found to have a range of TRL from 4 to 7. Lessons Learned are presented; however, due to the competition-sensitive nature of the assessments, the results for specific missions are not presented. The assessments were generally successful, and produced useful results for the agency. The SEWG team identified a number of potential improvements to the process. Particular focus was on ensuring traceability to guiding NASA documents, including the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook. The TRL Workbook has been substantially modified, and the revised workbook is described.

Technology Maturity Assessments and Confidence Intervals

“…TRL evaluations are typically performed at the component or subsystem level of a flight system. The rule of thumb for assigning a TRL for the overall system is that “the TRL of a system cannot be higher than the lowest TRL of its constituents” [Leete et al ., ]. A comprehensive understanding and assessment of all subsystems and components must be performed in order to ascertain the TRL of the system.…”

“…The utilization of TRL for the determination of technology maturity is very prominent in the literature. In 1974, Stan Sadin, a NASA researcher, introduced the TRL methodology for assessing technology maturity [Mankins, ; Leete et al ., ]. In 1995, John C. Mankins, from the NASA Office of Space Access and Technology, published a white paper containing nine TRL definitions that expanded the original seven TRL definitions conceived by Sadin [Mankins, ].…”

AEB Online Calculator for Assessing Technology Maturity: IMATEC

“…Developments in space have greatly benefited from quantitative methods to characterize the degree of maturity of all systems participating in a space mission. The so-called Technology Readiness Level (TRL; Leete et al 2015;Mankins 1995Mankins , 2009a invented by NASA (Sadin et al 1989) intends to measure the degree of maturity of a given system technology in a nine-level scale as originally defined by Mankins (1995). As such, the scale can be extended to all segments of a space mission.…”