Sure, the CubeSat standard was a big breakthrough of course. Bob Twiggs & Jordi Puig-Suari really helped to push forward the idea of standardization as a path t

Sure, the CubeSat standard was a big breakthrough of course. Bob Twiggs & Jordi Puig-Suari really helped to push forward the idea of standardization as a path towards reducing costs, but it was primarily intended as a learning platform for grad students. I kinda draw the analogy of how the Raspberry Pi went from being a learning tool, to something that hackers/makers saw as an opportunity to innovate on. CubeSats went through a similar transition. The work that then led to commercial activities came from a lot of different people have similar ideas about how commoditization can help to reduce costs and allow for riskier projects. There's actually a strong bias in the media that doesn't reflect the diversity of projects, missions, and technologies on the market at the moment. The idea of using a platform like CubeSats to open up the space sector is a lot more widespread than I think more people are aware of.