Cowboy Space unveils Big Iron rocket for 20,000 orbital AI data centers

Cowboy Space, founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, unveiled the Big Iron rocket and matching data-center satellites. The company plans a 20,000-satellite LEO constellation called Stampede, each delivering about 1 MW of compute, with a first launch targeted for December 2028.

• The stainless-steel rocket is 86 m tall and 4.7 m wide, powered by methalox Clydesdale engines
• The reusable first stage lands at sea while the upper stage stays in orbit as a satellite
• Each satellite carries five GPU racks for ~1 MW of compute and spans 132 m with panels deployed
• Maintaining Stampede would require thousands of launches per year from sites called Trailheads