[amsat-bb] "Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work"

ARRL story quotes NASA engineer Joe Pellegrino as saying "Only Half of the CubeSats Deployed into Space Work" - is the failure rate really that high?http://www.arrl.org/news/view/stmsat-1-youngsters-told-only-half-of-the-cube...

I've certainly noticed that a number of ISS deployed CubeSats using amateur frequencies which were subject to delays in the initial launch and then more delays before actual deployment have failed but it certainly didn't seem to be as high as 50%

But most ISS CubeSat deployments are not on amateur frequencies e.g. over 100 Planet Labs Dove CubeSats have been deployed. Was the NASA engineer saying that half of Planet Labs satellites failed to work?

73 Trevor M5AKA