There aren’t enough rockets for space data centers. Cowboy Space raised $275 million to build them.

The increasing demand for AI computing power is driving entrepreneurs to consider space-based data centers. However, a significant challenge exists: a shortage of affordable rockets to transport these data centers into Earth's orbit. Existing options like SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn face delays and commercial availability issues. This forces many space data center projects to target the mid-2030s or focus on edge processing for space sensors.

Cowboy Space Corporation, founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, has secured $275 million in Series B funding to tackle this problem head-on. The company, initially named Aetherflux and focused on space-based solar energy, pivoted to orbital data centers. This change led to the ambitious decision to develop its own rocket program, with the first launch anticipated by the end of 2028.

Bhatt explored partnerships with various launch providers but found insufficient capacity to scale an orbital data center business competitively. He emphasizes that while numerous new rockets are emerging, launch availability remains scarce, with many providers specializing in their own payloads. Cowboy Space aims to overcome this by building purpose-built rockets engineered specifically for launching its data center satellites.

This approach eliminates the need for a separate payload fairing by integrating the data center directly into the rocket's second stage. Each satellite is designed to weigh between 20,000 and 25,000 kilograms and provide 1 MW of power for approximately 800 onboard GPUs. This would make their rocket more powerful than SpaceX's Falcon 9, though still smaller than Starship. The company also intends for the booster to be reusable and has recruited seasoned aerospace industry professionals to achieve its goals.