Dmitry Poisik surveyed the room. “How many of you guys represent owner/operators?” he asked a crowd of a few dozen people attending a side session at the SmallSat 2025 Conference in Salt Lake City on Aug. 11.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...