THE NEW SPACE RACE: After first operational launch, here’s the next big test for ULA’s Vulcan rocket.

Complicating ULA’s ability to ramp up its Vulcan launch cadence is the rocket’s design. Unlike SpaceX, which has a fleet of reusable Falcon 9 boosters, ULA has doubled down on building single-use boosters. This will keep ULA’s factory humming in Decatur, Alabama.

But the most pressing bottleneck restricting ULA’s ability to ramp up its launch cadence is at the launch site. United Launch Alliance has a single launch pad at Cape Canaveral and is outfitting another at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. What’s more, the company has just one active rocket integration hangar, where technicians vertically stack Atlas V and Vulcan rockets on their launch platforms.

Construction crews are racing to finish work on a second integration building a couple of miles south of the existing hangar. ULA officials project the new building to be ready to start stacking rockets before the end of this year, but teams have already missed an earlier schedule that would have brought the hangar online this summer.

ULA is also preparing a third mobile launch platform, giving managers more flexibility in moving rockets around the spaceport. Ground crews assemble the pieces of each rocket atop the launch platforms, which then transfer the complete launch vehicles to the launch pad for final countdown preps. Ultimately, this will give ULA the capacity to work on three simultaneous launch campaigns at Cape Canaveral, plus one at the Vandenberg spaceport on the West Coast.

Wentz told reporters earlier this week that the second rocket assembly building will theoretically allow ULA to launch as often as once every 13 days. This would get the company to its goal of flying 25 missions per year.

ULA does some impressive work, but their model is still pre-2017 — the year SpaceX first re-used a Falcon 9 rocket — going into the 2030s.