Lego’s continued drive to create impressively detailed replica sets aimed at older builders makes it harder to be a fiscally responsible adult. To help celebrate NASA’s latest success with the landing of another rover on Mars, Lego’s new Discovery space shuttle commemorates one of the space agency’s previous successes: launching the Hubble Srhythm Tthe scope more than 30 years ago.
This year also marks the 40th anniversary of NASA’s space shuttle program, so Lego rightly chose Discovery for this set, because no other spacecraft has made so many spaceflights or carried so many astronauts. Discovery was also the first space shuttle from NASA to withdraw, and while visiting the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to see it in person, it remains a challenge during an active pandemic. the new replica of 2,354 Lego pieces. is the next best.
Designed on a 1:70 scale from the actual spacecraft, the latest version of Lego’s Discovery (the toy maker has already produced a few Discovery sets) is the largest to date, measuring nearly 22 inches long with a wingspan of more than 13.5 inches. This scale allowed Lego designers to include many additional features this time around, including a retractable landing gear, the retractable Canadarm, a rudder that splits in two to serve as an air brake during landings, work lifts and a wide cargo ship where it is also The detailed model of the Hubble Space Telescope can be caught.
Lego designers seemed to have worked so hard to make an accurate replica of the Hubble Tthe telescope as the shuttle that carries it. It is covered with 108 silver elements – the most included in a single set of lego – and has an opening and closing door that reveals the optics of the interior, as well as solar panels that can be fixed once the telescope is removed from the Discovery cargo ship. The telescope even has a removable component for those who want to recreate the various maintenance missions from 1993 to 2009 that helped give Hubble a second life.
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As with many of its adult-oriented model sets, Lego includes stands that display the Discovery space shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope separately, and a third stand that can be mounted on the spacecraft’s cargo ship for they can show together. Availability is it is expected to begin on April 1, 2021, priced at $ 200.