When does Baiju Bhatt plan Cowboy Space's first rocket launch?

Baiju Bhatt said Cowboy Space is aiming for a first flight before the end of 2028. The plan calls for a hot fire of the whole engine around the middle of 2027 and booster testing before then, with 2027 spent building at a 260,000-square-foot factory in Kent, Washington. He admitted many things must go right and called the date an ambitious target, not a guarantee.

• Bhatt's team projects orbital compute becoming cheaper than ground compute by 2031.
• Each planned launch site, called a trailhead, would have five launch mounts with four active and cost about $1 billion.

▸In their words

“The best way to get good at building rockets is by building rockets.” Baiju Bhatt · at 42:13 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Shawn Ryan Show (2026-10-27). Read the whole episode summary →

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