The US Space Agency intends to resume its piloted flights to the International Space Station (ISS) in the first half of 2020, world agencies reported.

They cite a statement by NASA Chief James Bridenstein during a visit to a U.S. space company in Hawthorne, California.

"We are getting very close, and we're very confident that, in the first part of next year, we will be ready to launch American astronauts on American rockets," Bridenstine said. He stressed that the space agency's priority was "launching American astronauts on American ships from American land."

The NASA chief plans to ship the equipment to the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida in the coming months.

NASA discontinued its own manned flights in 2011 after the completion of the space shuttle program. Since then, American astronauts have traveled to the International Space Station with Russian Soyuz spacecraft. NASA's Roscosmos contract expires in 2019.

Currently, two private companies in the US - SpaceX and Boeing s are developing two spacecraft in the US - the Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner respectively.