(a) If the contracting officer selects the milestone payment method (see §603.805), the contracting officer must assess the reasonableness of the estimated amount for reaching each milestone. This assessment enables the contracting officer to set the amount of each milestone payment to approximate the Federal share of the anticipated resource needs for carrying out that phase of the RD&D effort.

(b) The Federal share at each milestone need not be the same as the Federal share of the total project. For example, the contracting officer might deliberately set payment amounts with a larger Federal share for early milestones if a project involves a start-up company with limited resources.

(c) For an expenditure-based TIA, if the contracting officer establishes minimum cost sharing percentages for each milestone, those percentages should be indicated in the agreement.

(d) For a fixed-support TIA, the milestone payments should be associated with the well-defined, observable, and verifiable technical outcomes (e.g., demonstrations, tests, or data analysis) that are established for the project in accordance with §§603.305(a) and 603.560(a).