WOEING: Boeing’s Starliner won’t launch astronauts until 2028 (and may need a new rocket), NASA says.

If all goes according to plan, Starliner will conduct an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) this coming December or January, then carry astronauts up sometime in 2028, NASA announced in an update today (Sept. 28).

It’s a vote of confidence for a vehicle that has experienced some serious setbacks on its three test flights to date.

Except that Starliner was supposed to start delivering astronauts to ISS in 2017, when the space station still had a 13 years left of service life. It didn’t manage to do that until 2022 — and I’m sure you remember how badly that went — and now it won’t again until maybe 2028, just two years before ISS is scheduled to be de-orbited.