Cowboy Space unveils medium-lift rocket for constellation and orbital computing plans

Traders Union
All News
Business & Wealth
Companies
Cowboy unveils medium-lift rocket

Highlights

Cowboy Space unveiled the Big Iron medium-lift rocket, targeting first build by end of 2027 and inaugural flight in 2028.
The reusable Big Iron vehicle features a megawatt-class orbital data center upper stage with five NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPU racks and nine methane engines delivering 30,000 pounds thrust each.
Big Iron will support Cowboy Space's planned 20,000-satellite Stampede constellation and target National Security Space Launch contracts as SpaceX's Falcon 9 retirement looms.

Rocket design and development timeline

As first reported by Axios, Cowboy Space has unveiled the design of its medium-lift Big Iron rocket, which the company also plans to use as an orbital data center once its upper stage remains in space. The private company says building its own launch vehicle and reusing components is meant to reduce costs and widen launch access for outside customers.

Joseph Yaffe, Cowboy Space's chief operating officer, says the company aims to build the first rocket by the end of 2027, with a first flight targeted in 2028. In a press release, Chief Executive Baiju Bhatt says the company began with a goal of building data centers in space and moved into launch because there were not enough rockets available to carry them there.

The upper stage is designed with deployable radiators and is intended to stay in orbit as a megawatt-class data center rather than separating into a standalone satellite, the company says. Cowboy Space says the reusable booster uses nine liquid oxygen and methane Clydesdale engines, each capable of 30,000 pounds of thrust, while the computing payload is planned to carry five compute racks of NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs.

Market gap and defense ambitions

At about 282 feet tall, Big Iron is designed to stand slightly higher than SpaceX's Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V. Yaffe says the upper-stage payload can also be swapped for versions that either provide customers with a megawatt of power or deploy satellites.

The vehicle is central to Cowboy Space's ambitions for its planned Stampede constellation of 20,000 satellites. The company also wants to pursue the military's National Security Space Launch business, with Yaffe saying discussions have already begun as the market looks for more medium-lift options amid expectations that SpaceX may eventually retire Falcon 9.

Our earlier article on the U.S. AI data-center buildout highlighted how soaring costs, construction delays, and power constraints are making many planned projects look less achievable than investors expected. We noted that tighter financing conditions and local grid and permitting pressures are forcing developers to prove they can deliver new computing capacity on time and within budget.

This material may contain third-party opinions, none of the data and information on this webpage constitutes investment advice according to our Disclaimer. While we adhere to strict Editorial Integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners.