NASA is delaying the earliest potential next flight of Boeing Co.’s troubled Starliner spacecraft to 2026, pushing back a key milestone for a vehicle meant to serve as an alternative to the Dragon spacecraft owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

NASA entrusts SpaceX with the lives of its astronauts, and the Pentagon relies heavily on the company to launch its most sensitive satellites.

In the heat of the moment, Elon Musk threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and then he took it back. In doing so, however, the rocket billionaire dragged NASA into his messy breakup with Donald Trump, with the agency’s access to orbit now at stake.