Cowboy Space followed up its $275 million Series B round earlier this week by filing for a 20,000 satellite constellation to provide data center services from space.
Rebranded from its former name Aetherflux, Cowboy Space has expanded its focus into orbital data centers and launch — designed in tandem so that the payload is the upper stage of the launch vehicle.
The company’s FCC filing, submitted earlier this week, describes plans for its Stampede constellation operating primarily via optical inter-satellite links.
Detailing the constraints involved with powering data centers on Earth, Cowboy Space described it as “a system of in-orbit data centers designed to meet the rigorous computational demands of AI while completely bypassing the congested terrestrial power grid.”
“By putting the silicon next to the sunlight, Stampede can skip the terrestrial power grid entirely and bypass the costs and delays associated with building data centers on Earth,” the filing said. “Stampede presents an unprecedented opportunity for the United States to maintain its leadership in space innovation through the deployment of advanced, continuous space-solar energy and GPU-class compute capacity that bypasses Earth’s constrained infrastructure.”
Both SpaceX and Starcloud have also submitted filings for massive constellations to function as data centers with SpaceX targeting up to 1 million satellites, and Starcloud up to 88,000.
Cowboy Space is asking for a waiver from typical FCC schedule deployment rules that require an operator to deploy a certain number of satellites by a certain date with a bond and milestone framework in place. Cowboy Space argues that those rules are in place to prevent spectrum warehousing, whereas Stampede will operate primarily in optical and not use inter-satellite links.
Instead, the company said it can begin providing commercial operations with as few as one satellite in orbit, and it plans to expand compute capabilities with subsequent launches.
“A waiver here would give Cowboy Space the ability to flexibly scale its operations over time to respond to market demand and technological developments rather than artificially forcing deployment based on a regulatory mandate,” the company said.
The company is targeting a first launch in 2028 and then plans to “progressively launch satellites and build out the system over the following months and years.
Baiju Bhatt, one of the co-founders of investing app Robinhood, founded Cowboy Space in 2024 as Aetherflux.
