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Planet has hundreds of cube sats in orbit already. Low and medium resolution data is not suitable for most commercial use cases. The only way to get high res data is from big lenses = big satellites = big costs. I agree that cubes sats are exciting especially for non-optical use cases like blanketing the earth with internet or GPS-RO or Synthetic Aperture Radar. But they are not a game-changer for visible-spectrum earth observation data in my opinion.

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Yes, but a crack in the monopoly edifice has appeared. It is true - the large lenses rule - for now. I anticipate larger sensors, coupled with Cassegrain reflectors(which are far lighter than glass and fold to shrink the path and can fold even more for launch - unfolding on cue) will soon be flying and will begin the cube sat's climb towards parity with the big boys as the weight saving will enable their implementation in cube sats. This will make the big boys fight back via access and price relaxations. I hope the cube sats people stay independant and do not make common cause with the big boys? Better and lower power SARs and control electronics are emerging to run within the smaller power budget of the cubes.

Interesting, I’m unfamiliar with Cassegrain reflectors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_reflector

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