Boeing Co. is exploring a sale of its space division as the troubled planemaker’s new leader looks to streamline and focus the company on its core operations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The early-stage effort includes Boeing’s Starliner space capsule and its operations supporting the International Space Station, the newspaper said Friday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Boeing is expected to continue its work on the Space Launch System, a huge rocket intended to eventually carry American astronauts back to the moon for NASA, according to the report.

A Boeing spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg has indicated that the beleaguered aerospace manufacturer may shrink its broad portfolio to increase the company’s focus on its core commercial aircraft and defense operations. Ortberg has begun a review of the company’s businesses that he expects to conclude by the end of the year, he said earlier this week.

“We’re better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well,” Ortberg said on Boeing’s Oct. 23 earnings call.

The review comes as Ortberg works to end a crippling, six-week labor strike that has idled production of key jetliners, including the cash-cow 737 Max. The work stoppage is exacerbating the company’s troubled financial situation, with its credit ratings on the edge of junk and worsening cash burn that Boeing said earlier this week will extend into 2025.

A step away from its space business would mark a major shift for a company that’s been integral to America’s history of exploration beyond the atmosphere. Boeing’s lineage stretches back more than 50 years to the Saturn V that first sent men to the moon and today includes building satellites, the clandestine X-37B space plane, the SLS moon rocket and managing the ISS.Yet in the last decade, Boeing has fallen far behind major technological leaps made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other “new space” firms that have championed reusable rocket technology. The ISS is heading toward retirement, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. have also been shopping for a buyer for their United Launch Alliance joint venture over the past year.

Boeing reported an additional $250 million in cost overruns for the Starliner vessel earlier this week following a botched flight test that has left two Americans stuck at the space station for months. The latest hit increased the total charges on the program to more than $1.8 billion since 2016, according to a Bloomberg review of financial filings.

Even before to the latest mishap, the future of Starliner was unclear beyond a plan for a half-dozen more missions to the ISS for NASA. And as Starliner ran into multiple delays, SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule has made 43 visits to the ISS since 2019, carrying both crew and cargo for NASA.

Boeing shares were little changed as of Friday.