The Russian rocket Soyuz will launch astronauts to the space station by Christmas, NASA's chief announced.

The next group of crewmembers are expected to head to the International Space Station in December, despite the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket earlier this month, said NASA chief Jim Bridenstine.

This failure occurred on October 11th. The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan just minutes after takeoff. The investigation into the incident has been productive and the Soyuz rocket will probably not be anchored for long, Bridenstine said today (23 October) at a meeting of the US National Council of Space in Washington, DC.

"We have a very good idea of ​​the problem," said Bridenstine. "We are about to understand it even better so we can start again with confidence." [In Photos: Space Crew’s Harrowing Abort Landing After Soyuz Failure]

He did not explain this problem. But speculation currently bears on one of the four Soyuz strap thrusters, which may have been attached to the rocket mistakenly before the flight. Russian space officials have announced that they will finish their accident report by October 30, although it is difficult to know when the results of this report will be made public.

Russian authorities have also announced plans to launch three Soyuz launches before the rocket is used again to attract astronauts. And the current schedule should allow the next crew launch to take place on December 20, as planned, said Bridenstine.

"NASA is regrouping, we are rescheduling and we are getting ready again," he said. "We have a number of Soyuz Russian rocket launches this month and a half, and in December we are fully planning to equip our crew with a Russian Soyuz rocket for launch back at the Space Station. international. "

The crew will consist of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency. But Hague and Ovchinin, who survived the October 11 test, will have another chance in the future, said NASA officials and Russian space officials.

"They are not happy," said Bridenstine about the duo. "They want to be part of the International Space Station and can not wait to return, so we are grateful for their enthusiasm."

NASA is also grateful that Soyuz 's emergency abandonment system has functioned exactly as it was supposed to on October 11, he added.

"It's important to note that, even though it was a failed launch, it was probably the most successful missed launch we could imagine," said Bridenstine.

Today's event marked the fourth meeting of the recently reconstituted National Space Council, chaired by US Vice President Mike Pence. Today's meeting focused largely on the ongoing efforts to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the US military, a priority of President Donald Trump.

Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there" will be published on November 13 by Grand Central Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.