The enactment of the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-23) and the recent revision of Department of Defense Instruction have served to highlight the complexity of the Department of Defense acquisition This report serves as a follow-on study to the 2008 National Research Council (NRC) report Pre-Milestone A and Early-Phase Systems Engineering: A Retrospective Review and Benefits for Future Air Force Systems Acquisition, which emphasized the role of systems engineering in the acquisition life This complementary report focuses specifically on the role of maturing technologies and inserting them at the appropriate time in the acquisition cycle
