SAN CARLOS, USA, Oct. 26, 2026 - Cowboy Space, led by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, has unveiled Big Iron, the rocket it plans to use to build a constellation of 20,000 AI data-centre satellites in low Earth orbit.

Its first stage is designed to be reusable, and the upper stage itself becomes the data-centre satellite once it reaches orbit. The rocket uses methalox-fuelled Clydesdale engines, and the first launch is targeted for December 2028.

The constellation, named Stampede, was filed with the FCC in May, and the company asked for a waiver from the FCC's deployment schedule. Cowboy Space, previously named Aetherflux, raised $275 million in a Series B round. It is not alone: SpaceX has filed for up to a million data-centre satellites, and Starcloud for up to 88,000.

Impact Insight. Every satellite added to low Earth orbit is another object that tracking networks must follow and other spacecraft must avoid. Constellations of tens of thousands, and proposals reaching a million, are why space-traffic management and debris tracking are becoming as central to keeping near-Earth space safe as finding asteroids is to protecting the ground.