Those CubeSats were a deep-space mission. Out near the Moon.
The TDRSS is separate from DSN. Expanding low-orbit options won't do anything to help here.
I didn’t realize Cubesats could go that far. That’s really great.
CubeSats have gone all the way to Mars even
I believe that NASA recognized the problem and potential solutions, but they moved slowly probably due to their clunky bureaucracy.
> NASA relies on commercial ground stations for more than half of its ground station support for the agency's satellites in low-Earth orbit. NASA last year selected SpaceX, Amazon, Viasat, Telecast, SES, and Inmarsat to begin developing commercial capabilities to replace the government-owned Tracking and Data Relay Satellite network, which is used for near-continuous connectivity with the International Space Station and other satellites closer to Earth.