A top official from NASA has said on Friday that a new mission to the International Space Station could happen this year soon after Russian experts solve the issue of Soyuz rocket malfunction, due to which the crew went on a harrowing escape from the outer edge of the stratosphere.

“I fully anticipate that we will fly again on a Soyuz rocket, and I have no reason to believe at this point that it will not be on schedule,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told News reporters.

The announcement could be interpreted to be another launch before mid-December, a time when the three-member crew on the space station – an American, Russian and German – was scheduled to end their six-month of their mission.

“No changes have been made. The investigation is underway,” Bridenstine added.

Space launches by Russia were suspended since Thursday after the booster of the rocket malfunctioned around two minutes from liftoff – that is 31 miles above the launch surface. Crew onboard were NASA’s Tyler N. “Nick” Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Both the men onboard were successful in landing safely on the Kazakhstan’s grassy steppes after ejecting themselves from the capsule.

To reach the orbiting international laboratory in the space, Russian rockets are only seen to be capable, but Bridenstine said that the rocket failure did not result in the tarnishing of the image of venerable Soyuz rockets. And the incident is being seen as the first such one in the post-Soviet era.

“Not every mission that fails ends up so successful,” he said, referring to the safe return of Hague and Ovchinin.

The parachutes of the capsule were deployed successfully, but the descent was too quick and fast. NASA announced that both the crew members experienced more than six times the force of gravity before they reached the ground more than 200 miles from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

An investigation is underway into the rocket failure by the Russian technicians. Bridenstine said that they have got a “really good idea” for the cause.

“I think the investigation is going to go swiftly,” he said, but gave no further details on the preliminary findings.

According to the head of Roscosmos’s manned programs, Sergei Krikalyovi, one of the rocket’s total four boosters failed to separate from the main stage. Due to the ongoing investigation with results awaited, all kind of Soyuz flights, including manned and unmanned with vital supplies to be delivered with food and equipment, have been suspended.

Both the crew members, Hague and Ovchinin were kept under medical observation.

While recalling the moment of launh, Bridenstine realized that something had really gone wrong with the launch.

“My immediate reaction was, ‘Things are not going well. He’s not speaking English.” Hague’s words – in which he described the sharp drop in gravity force – were then translated into the English language while feeling that, all members of the Soyuz crew need to learn Russian.

The chief of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that both the men shall get another change to reach the space station.

“The boys will certainly fly their mission,” Rogozin tweeted, posting a picture in which he sits along with the two astronauts aboard a Moscow-bound plane. “We plan that they will fly in the spring.”

Bridenstine also found this moment to praise the ongoing relationship of Washington and Moscow in the space frontier despite the deepening political disputes.

“To keep space separate from the political environment has always been our tradition, and we want to keep that going forward,” he said.

You May Also Read: Boston Dynamic’s Humanoid Robot – Atlas – Learns Another New Trick: Parkour