This is fascinating - especially the talks about the advantages of using COTS electronics.
Once upon a time, the latest and greatest in electronics was produced by military, scientific, and spaceflight applications, with commercial uses being spinoffs that were often up to a decade behind. Now the situation is reversed; consumer electronics are where the innovation is happening, and military/space systems are finding ways to repurpose that technology.
There's actually strong synergy. There's a lot of spin-in and spin-out going on between space and non-space sectors.
COTS and general commodization of "discete units" (parts, subsystems, assemblies, etc.) is one of the biggest drivers for the commercialization of space. It's enabling people to move towards the use of advanced manufacturing techniques, cutting lead time and cost, and enabling batch production.
We see a lot of this happening through our website: https://satsearch.co. We're effectively building a B2B marketplace because of this specific change in the way supply chains are being architected.
Disclosure: I'm one of the co-founders at satsearch.
I think this is only true for small LEO spacecrafts that are more or less 'disposable'. For higher cost GEO and interplanetary spacecraft, consumer electronics are not going to be hardened sufficiently and flight-proven to be used in those applications.
Isn't really about those being higher cost - as the Planet people say, their approach is only possible because they're working inside Earth's magnetosphere.
They also mentioned that they can afford to have satellites fail since they are cheaper and sending up so many. Also won't be possible with one-off GEO birds.
Once upon a time, the latest and greatest in electronics was produced by military, scientific, and spaceflight applications, with commercial uses being spinoffs that were often up to a decade behind. Now the situation is reversed; consumer electronics are where the innovation is happening, and military/space systems are finding ways to repurpose that technology.