The Phoenix Mars Mission was the first-ever NASA mission to be headquartered at a public university, the University of Arizona. The mission was designed to land a spacecraft in the northern plains of Mars to look for 'water ice' beneath the planet’s surface. After a series of failed attempts, Phoenix was aptly named, rising from the ashes of those previous missions. It launched on August 4th 2007, but before Phoenix could begin its scientific mission, it first had to land safely on the surface of Mars. To do that, the spacecraft would have to survive entry, descent and landing, it was a harrowing seven minutes of terror that began on may 25th, 2008.