In a post-launch press release early Wednesday, ULA confirmed its next mission will be an Atlas V launch for Amazon's Kuiper constellation, a network that will eventually number more than 3,200 satellites. Later this year, ULA expects to launch more Vulcan rockets with Kuiper satellites and the Space Force's next national security mission.

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 has launched just three times so far in 2025, and the company recently halved its projected launch manifest for this year from 20 missions to around nine.

ULA is also moving forward with modifications to Vulcan's core stage to allow for the recovery and reuse of the rocket's main engines. Tory Bruno, the company's chief executive, announced last week that engineers completed a critical design review for the hardware changes required for engine reuse. These changes include severable mechanical and fluid connections for the engine section to jettison from the rocket, plus a heat shield and parachute to safely bring the engines back for an ocean recovery downrange from the launch pad.

Officials haven't announced an exact timetable for introducing engine recovery and reuse.