SOL 139 AASP-13 mission
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ARES Reference Packet / AASP-13

AASP-13 “Thirteen”

Mass
2.5-3.5 t
Wheels
6 driven
Power
8-15 kWe
Scouts
2 Kestrels
Arms
2 turreted
Return
2-4 micro-MAVs
AASP-13 Thirteen, a large six-wheeled Mars rover with a binocular mast, dual arms, two scout helicopter bays, radiators, and an aft sample-return launch tube.
Exterior design plate: large rover-class field laboratory, binocular mast visor deployed.
Thirteen parked on Mars with dual front arms near sample tools and two compact Kestrel scout helicopters docked on the top deck.
Field operations: scout roosts, sample handling, rover systems warm.

Mission role

Mobile Field Station

Thirteen is the platform ARES sends when a site is too complex for a one-body rover and too important to sample casually. It scouts, maps, drills, collects, analyzes, and returns the most compelling samples from Mars with unprecedented care and fidelity. It is a field geologist, a sample prep and analysis lab, and a launchpad for sample-return rockets, all in one.

  • Route scouting by two reusable Kestrel helicopters.
  • Onboard sample triage through a sealed internal carousel.
  • Clean and dirty robotic arms kept deliberately separate.
  • Compact fission power for long-duration science and survival.

Architecture notes

What Makes Thirteen Thirteen

Dual arms

Clean left, dirty right

A slim science arm handles contact instruments and witness plates while the heavier tool arm drills, scoops, scrapes, and loads samples into the sealed transfer port.

Binocular mast

Visor assembly

Stereo cameras, lidar, meteorology, sun sensing, and the deployable smoked-gold calibration visor that mission staff refuse to call sunglasses in formal review.

Kestrel bays

Twin scouts

Two heated top-deck roosts charge and shelter foldable coaxial scout helicopters for route scouting, hazard mapping, and hard-to-reach terrain inspection.

Science vault

Sealed carousel

The warm central vault indexes sample tubes through microscopy, chemistry, contamination tracking, triage, and sealed return-capsule handling.

Fission bay

Thermal discipline

A compact fission surface power unit sits low and aft, feeding radiator loops, steady baseline power, and a battery buffer for short high-load events.

Launch tube

Micro-MAV only

The rear/top tube cold-ejects small sample-return rockets clear of the rover before ignition. The orbiter handles capture and the trip home.

Sample carousel

Sealed transfer

A guarded internal path moves cores and regolith from the dirty arm into sealed tubes, preliminary inspection, priority storage, and return-capsule loading.

Six wheels

Active leveling

Three wheel stations per side keep the rover in a proven Mars mobility lineage while active leveling steadies drilling, arm work, and launch prep.

Mission Info

AASP Program

ARES is a Mars exploration and astrobiology program that treats robotic fieldwork less like a sequence of isolated rover traverses and more like a sustained, mobile laboratory campaign. Each ARES Autonomous Science Platform is designed to survey difficult terrain, triage science targets locally, and return the highest-priority samples to a Mars-orbiting relay vehicle.

AASP-13 Rover

ARES Autonomous Science Platform 13, a.k.a. "Thirteen", is (unsurprisingly) the thirteenth autonomous science platform in the ARES Mars exploration and astrobiology program: Thirteen is a large nuclear-powered Mars field laboratory, with six independently driven wheels, two front robotic arms, a binocular camera mast with retractable optical shielding, two semi-autonomous Kestrel scout helicopters, and a launch tube for small sample-return rockets at the rear of the upper deck..

The paltform is intentionally bigger than the various single-rover missions that came before it. Its job is to act as a semi-permanent, largely autonomous field station that can move with the science, instead of rationing every watt and every command cycle. It is not fast. It is not subtle. It is also not a tank, no matter how many times Systems asks Public Affairs to stop using the word "chonky."

Editor's Note

The official paperwork calls the mast visor the Mastcam Solar Attenuation and Dust Calibration Visor Assembly. The flight team calls them sunglasses. Both names are technically accurate.

Mission Overview

Vehicle Architecture

Thirteen uses a large six-wheel rocker-bogie-derived chassis arranged as three wheel stations per side. Each wheel is independently driven. The front and rear wheels steer, while the middle wheels provide load-bearing traction and terrain compensation.

The main body is divided into practical spacecraft neighborhoods:

  • Forward bay: dual robotic arms, hazard cameras, close-range navigation sensors, and arm-interface avionics.
  • Central vault: warm electronics box, science instruments, sealed microscopy and chemistry chamber, sample carousel, and storage.
  • Top deck: two Kestrel scout-helicopter roost bays, mast base, high-gain antenna, calibration targets, and witness plates.
  • Aft bay: compact fission surface power unit, thermal control hardware, radiator hinges, and micro-ascent rocket cassette.
  • Rear/top launch tube: for launching Mars Sample Launch Vehicles (MSLVs)

Power System

AASP-13 uses a compact fission surface power unit mounted low and aft-central inside an armored thermal bay. Heat pipes carry waste heat to deployable side and rear radiators, while a closed Stirling thermal engine loop feeds continuous electrical power into the rover bus.

Battery banks handle peak loads: drilling, sample processing, helicopter charging, launch preparation, high-power mobility bursts, and cold-start recovery after dust events. The reactor gives Thirteen something older RTG rovers never had in abundance: a steady power budget and enough thermal margin to behave like a semi-permanent field lab.

There is no green glow. There is shielding, heat plumbing, radiator discipline, and the kind of engineering that makes thermal-control people look quietly smug.

Mobility

The six-wheel system keeps Thirteen within a proven Mars rover mobility lineage while scaling the structure for a much heavier field laboratory. Active suspension can level the chassis for drilling, delicate arm work, sample handling, and micro-MAV launch operations.

Before high-force drilling or sample launch, Thirteen deploys stabilizer pads to brace the chassis against regolith. The wheel design follows the Mars rover lineage: metal structure, grousered rims, compliant spokes, and a willingness to complain acoustically about every rock.

Robotic Systems

The left arm is the clean precision arm. Its turret carries a macro imager, microscope, Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy package, XRF/APXS-style contact sensor, dust brush, abrasion pad, witness-plate handler, and contamination-control tools.

The right arm is the dirty/high-force arm. Its turret carries a percussive coring drill, shallow auger, trenching scoop, rock abrader, sample-tube loader, pry tool, and regolith scraper.

The split keeps delicate astrobiology work away from the hardware that spends its day doing geology crimes.

Air Wing

Thirteen carries two reusable Kestrel scout helicopters, similar in concept to the Ingenuity helicopter from the Curiosity program, but significantly larger and operationally integrated with the main AASP platform. Weighing approximately 6kg, with coaxial counter-rotating foldable rotors around 1.6-1.8 m in diameter. AASP-13 is equipped with two "roost" bays/pads for these helicopters, featuring charge contacts and thermal coupling pads, on the upper deck.

The Kestrels scout routes, map hazards, inspect ridges and valleys, verify sample caches, monitor weather and dust, and survey terrain the rover should not try to drive across. They are scouts, not cargo aircraft. Mars does not have enough atmosphere for bravado.

Sample Processing And Return

Samples move from the tool arm through a sealed transfer port into Thirteen's internal carousel. The lab performs preliminary inspection, screens for contamination risk, and ranks priority samples. High-value material is sealed into tiny return capsules and loaded into micro-ascent rockets.

Each micro-MAV is a small two-stage solid rocket: about 1.5m long, 20-30 cm in diameter (variable along length), and approximately 90 kg. It is cold-ejected clear of the rover before ignition, then climbs to rendezvous with a Mars-orbiting return vehicle. The orbiter handles capture and Earth return injection.

The platform is typically equipped with 3-4 of these rockets depending on other science payloads, so return capacity is extremely limited.

Launch sequence is deliberately boring until it is not: level chassis, deploy stabilizer pads, lock radiator and drone bay covers, shutter nearby optics, open rear/top tube, eject, ignite, track, breathe again.

Mast And Visor

The binocular mast carries stereo zoom science cameras, navigation cameras, panoramic imaging, lidar/rangefinding, meteorology sensors, dust monitoring, sun sensing, and high-mounted navigation aids.

It also carries the Mastcam Solar Attenuation and Dust Calibration Visor Assembly.

They are not sunglasses. They are absolutely sunglasses.

The visor drops two smoked dark-gold protective filter panels over the binocular mast cameras for solar imaging attenuation, dust protection, glare reduction, optical calibration, emergency lens shielding, and rover selfies. It is a critical part of the rover's safety system.

It is also, unfortunately for Public Affairs, iconic.

Autonomous Operations

Thirteen has to coordinate rover mobility, two helicopters, two robotic arms, contamination control, power planning, thermal management, sample triage, and launch readiness while Earth is several light-minutes away.

The local autonomy stack handles terrain classification, route planning, drone scheduling, sample-target ranking, hazard avoidance, power budgeting, and dryly sarcastic local mission notes.

Typical loop: Kestrels scout the region, Thirteen builds a terrain map, the rover drives to a safe standoff, the science arm inspects, the tool arm samples, the lab screens material, and the best samples leave Mars in very small rockets.

Specifications

Field Value
Official name ARES Autonomous Science Platform 13
Callsign Thirteen
Mission type Autonomous astrobiology and sample-return platform
Length 4.8-5.2 m
Width 3.2-3.6 m
Deck height 2.2-2.5 m
Mast height 3.8-4.2 m raised
Mass 2.5-3.5 tonnes depending on payload
Wheels 6 independently driven wheels
Suspension Articulated rocker-bogie derivative with active leveling
Power Compact fission reactor plus battery buffer
Continuous power 8-12 kWe typical, reduces over time
Peak buffered power 30-50 kW short-duration
Aerial scouts 2 reusable Kestrel helicopters
Arms 2 turreted robotic arms
Sample return 2-4 micro-ascent rockets to orbital return vehicle
Camera mast Binocular stereo mast with deployable visor
Unofficial feature Sunglasses

Rover Log Extracts

MISSION LOG
designation: AASP-13
callsign: Thirteen
program: ARES
reactor: warm and judgmental
wheels: six
drones: two
sunglasses: mission-critical
MISSION LOG
visor deployed
glare reduced
dust protection nominal
looking sick as hell
MISSION LOG
sample target acquired
rock selected
drill enthusiasm: high
geology crimes: pending
MISSION LOG
scout flight complete
dune field mapped
route confidence: acceptable
drone 2 remains concerningly bold