Importantly McGregor and Hawthorne have demonstrated this isn't just a burst rate, but something they can achieve for multiple months.

Assuming weather and launch infrastructure cooperates it looks like they could comfortably aim for an extra dozen or so launches next year!

MVac testing seems to be going great as well. I'm not sure if these are all unique engines or not, but with an apparent surplus of 17 engines they're doing fine either way.

To help achieve this pace, they tested a new Stage 2 every weekday on not just one week, but two weeks!

This was something we'd never seen before and they've now achieved it twice in one quarter. No doubt a big achievement for the teams, averaging a <24 hour cycle time

Looking at the Stage 2 surplus plot, SpaceX's pace this quarter has been closer to 185/year instead of 170!

Whatever the bottleneck was seems to have been eliminated mid-April given the sudden change in direction. It would be super interesting to know what improvements were made

SpaceX had an extremely strong 2nd quarter, and if they can keep this pace up they should have enough 2nd stages to meet their goal of 170 Falcon flights.

Following this pace, there will probably be a 2nd stage test today that can be seen live at nsf.live/mcgregor!

MVac testing is another indicator since every 2nd stage needs one. As we've seen before, MVac production/testing is doing great with a surplus of 4 engines.

Even if some engines have been fired multiple times, it's reasonable to assume 2nd stages aren't held up by MVacs.

Interestingly, they've tested 78 2nd stages but flown 81 missions. Perhaps due to the slower start to the year this indicates they've cut a bit into their buffer of 2nd stages.

We don't know how many they had "in stock" at the start of the year, but it must have been at least 3!

This year (blue) is ahead of where they were last year (red), though they're still 6 behind the "ideal" target.

However, since early April they've been testing at a record pace! If they keep it up they will end the year with a surplus of 2nd stages!

Basically they did the second longest test we've ever seen at McGregor, and by a decent margin as far as Raptor's concerned. What that means is up for discussion, but interesting to see

For some more stats on longest tests, Falcon 9's second stage holds third place with a 454 second test, while MVac sits in 11th place at 390 seconds. The Raptor Vertical stand's longest test puts it in 131st place

Lastly, while this testing data gives insight into their possible launch rate, we don't know what the specific difficulties are. It could be getting materials, production, testing, something else, or all of the above! Even if they don't hit 170 it's still a very impressive rate.

This certainly doesn't put them out of reach of their goal but it does show increasing this rate isn't easy. The rest of the year would need to have a rate of ~178/year to reach 170 total.

Stage 2 data is a bit rougher however. Mid January through late February had an excellent rate of testing, even exceeding 170/year.

Despite this, three dips in testing rate has put the testing deficit at exactly the same point as last year.

Again blue is 2025 and red is 2024

They've done about 6.5 more tests compared to this point last year, and are slightly above their target rate.

Even if a test or two were reruns of the same engine they appear to have a steady testing flow at the target rate