Cowboy Space's Stampede is a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit that harness solar power to run on-orbit GPU data centers, growing power and compute capacity with each launch.
The company integrates a megawatt-class data center into the upper stage of its launch vehicle, treating the rocket upper stage as the satellite itself to dedicate maximum mass to high-performance AI compute, with commercial operation targeted for the first quarter of 2027.
AI demand is driving the largest infrastructure buildout in recent history while terrestrial power grids cannot keep pace, with major US market grid connection lead times for new data centers running five to seven years or more.
Investor appetite for orbital data centers has grown sharply, with Cowboy Space reaching a $2 billion valuation within roughly two years of founding as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and venture-backed startups pursue in-space compute to address power and cooling constraints facing terrestrial data centers.
Cowboy Space pursues a vertically integrated architecture spanning launch vehicles, space-based power, and in-orbit compute, owning both the launch and the infrastructure rather than relying on third-party rockets.
By building the data center into the launch vehicle upper stage as a single unified vehicle, the company eliminates redundant structure and avionics mass, dedicating nearly every kilogram to high-performance AI compute in low Earth orbit where solar power and radiative cooling avoid terrestrial grid and cooling constraints.