Public reserve windows survive because orbital imaging becomes politically brittle when every useful pass can be bought away.
Operators may prefer a pure market queue, but legitimacy depends on keeping some capacity outside ordinary bidding logic. Flood review, infrastructure safety, civil oversight, and emergency verification all need protected access even when the commercial calendar is full.
A reserve window is therefore not anti-market. It is what allows the market to survive public scrutiny once the sensor becomes operationally important.