On this day in space: Jan. 20, 1978: 1st Progress cargo delivery mission launched

On January 20, 1978, the Soviet space program launched the first ever Progress cargo ship on a mission to deliver supplies to the Salyut 6 space station.

A file photo of a Russian Progress 55 cargo ship leaving the International Space Station in July 2014. Russia's latest cargo ship Progress 59 launched on April 28, 2015, only to suffer a serious malfunction after reaching orbit. The U.S. Air Force has spotted 44 pieces of debris around the spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA)

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.

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