Yuri Koptev, director of Rosaviakosmos, said that Russia expected to launch two Soyuz manned spacecraft next year, with a guaranteed seat onboard each for a Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

No one at the space agency could be reached for comment Friday, a holiday in Russia.

The Russian space program has been the sole link with the multinational orbiting space station since the U.S. shuttle Columbia broke apart while returning to Earth on Feb. 1. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.

NASA immediately grounded its shuttle fleet, leaving Russia's non-reusable Soyuz capsules and unmanned Progress spaceships as the only means for getting crew and supplies to and from the station.

"American colleagues told us today that they would schedule the first flight of a space shuttle for late September, early October," ITAR-Tass quoted Koptev as saying.

But that will be a test flight, he said, meaning that Russia must continue to shoulder the burden of keeping the ISS permanently manned.

The Russians have repeatedly complained that the extra work has left them with funding shortfalls.

Koptev said that the Soyuz that launches in April will carry an astronaut from the Netherlands, in addition to the American and Russian crew who will replace the space station's current inhabitants. The third seat in the fall launch is still vacant, but may go to a member of the European Space Agency, ITAR-Tass quoted Koptev as saying.

"We have about five candidates," he said, without elaborating. Some observers have said that Russia may offer the seat to a paying guest, restarting its space tourism program.