Soyuz already back on the saddle, with the launch with crew scheduled for early December

The break in manned flights caused by the failure of a Russian rocket Soyuz will be very brief.

Three members of the crew will be launched Dec. 3 to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz, today announced Russian space officials (Nov. 1). This deadline falls less than eight weeks after the October 11 launch anomaly, which forced the Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA's astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to land a landing. emergency in the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Hague and Ovchinin disembark safely. are in good condition, but they will not fly during the December 3rd mission. The upcoming launch will take place between cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency. [Soyuz Space Crew Launch Failure 2018: Full Coverage]

An unprepared ISS Soyuz mission will precede the December 3 takeoff, Russian space officials announced today: A Soyuz will launch a Russian cargo freighter to Progress to the laboratory in orbit. November 16th.

The Roscosmos Space Agency also today revealed the results of the investigation into the Soyuz anomaly. The blackout occurred about 2 minutes after takeoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, when one of the four Soyuz belt thrusters (the one known as Block D) failed to separate and hit the center of the rocket.

"An abnormal separation was caused by the non-opening of the nozzle cover to separate the oxidant reservoir from the D block, due to deformation of the separation sensor pin [which was bent by 6 degrees and 45 minutes]", stated Roscosmos officials in a statement. "It was damaged when mounting the strap boosters with the central deck (the Packet) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome."

The rapid return flight will alleviate worries about the proper functioning of the ISS in the event of lack of personnel or lack of personnel. The Soyuz spacecraft duo is the only route taken by astronauts to the orbiting orbit laboratory since NASA shut down its space shuttle fleet in 2011.

This total dependence is expected to end fairly quickly. US companies SpaceX and Boeing are developing astronaut taxis under multi-billion dollar contracts with NASA, and both vehicles will make their first crew test flight mid-way through the next year.

Hague and Ovchinin will probably have time to fly before two private spaceships put online. Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, announced last month that plans were to launch the two astronauts to the ISS in the spring of 2019.

Mike Wall's book on the search for the "astronauts". an extraterrestrial life, "Out There", will be published in November 13 from Grand Central Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall . Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally posted on Space.com.