10.3

Listening, 10 .3. Read the text, then listen.

People started to plan Mars missions in the 1950s, and they still want to explore the red planet.

There were a lot of missions to land on Mars, but more than half of them were not successful.

The first spacecraft that made a soft landing on Mars was Mars 3 orbiter.

It landed on the planet in 1971.

Unfortunately, 20 seconds after it was on the planet's surface, it went silent.

Nobody understood the reasons for it, but it was for sure that the orbiter couldn't complete the mission.

In 2005, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter started orbiting Mars.

Today it's still working and collecting data about the planet.

Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2011, is a robot investigating Mars.

It is still searching areas of the planet too.

Perhaps they'll find answers to our questions about Mars one day.