Lego has announced the long-awaited International Space Station set. The 864-piece set is expected to go on sale on February 1, 2020, for €69,99.
The Lego International Space Station set is part of the toy company’s 10-year anniversary celebration of Lego Ideas, a program that allows fans to submit Lego set concepts for consideration.
Once a concept is submitted, it needs 10,000 supporters before it is submitted to the Lego team for consideration. However, even after garnering the necessary support, most Lego Ideas concepts are not made into official sets.
For the 10th anniversary of Lego ideas, the company went back and picked four promising concepts that had received 10,000 supporters but did not go into production. Fans were then able to vote for which concept they would like to see become an official set. Over the two week voting period, the International Space Station set garnered more than 45% of the more than 22,000 votes.
Once built, the 864-piece Lego International Space Station set measures 20cm high, 31cm long, and 49cm wide. The station itself features a Canadarm 2 robotic arm, two rotating joints, and eight adjustable solar panels. The set also includes a small space shuttle model, three mini cargo spacecraft, and two astronaut microfigures.
In addition to celebrating the 10th anniversary of Lego Ideas, the new set will also be a celebration of 20 years of continuous human occupation aboard the International Space Station.
The first module of the International Space Station, the Russian Zarya module was launched on November 20, 1998. Over the next two years, the Unity and Zvezda modules were added. On November 2, 2000, Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd of NASA and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos became the station’s first residents. Since then, the station has hosted a continuous human presence despite a few close calls that almost left it vacant for a period.
