zaterdag 28 november 2015

Lego Build: 7469 Mission To Mars

In today`s build report, I`m tackling my loot I brought back from Brick Mania Wetteren in past april, the Mission to Mars set which was produced together with Discovery Channel back in 2003.

Now, being a geek I do love these `hard science` sets (okay, so the Space Shuttle has past out of my budget reach unfortunatly) and was very happy to find it in the sealed box for 40 euro.

The set contains the three stages of the Mars mission, with the first being the satellite Odyssey, the famous Mars Rover and the Delta II rocket on a launch pad which delivered the Rover to his destination.

The box contains a couple of bags for the 400+ elements, a sticker sheet, but also a mini poster and a very informative booklet about the mission.


The first thing we are going to be building is the Odyssey probe, which comes with a disc shaped base decorated by a large sticker.


The probe itself is a pretty straightforward build, with nice decals being used for it`s solar panels.


It`s also the owner of the famous gilded dish elements.

These are connected to a tan core build with the necessary expanding staves for the dishes.


Connecting those to the solar panels, we have the probe all ready.

The second build in the set that will be made is the Mars Rover, whose bodywork is all build within tan elements.


The wheel axles are build and connected with rubber bands at the front, allowing the rover to navigate difficult terrain and interlinking all the wheels together.





Dark blue plates are used to cover it`s topside to represent it`s large solar panel back.


The necessary antenna and tools are added on the top of these plates, including it`s signature `head' and the manipulation arm at the front.







The final build is the Delta II.  Now as you will see during the build up, it has some decals that span more then one element, making it rather hard to disassemble it if you placed the stickers on it.

The tower is basically just that, a whole array of large grey elements stacked on top of each other with the odd connector arms left and right to add some difference.  But it really is a rather monotonous build for the first few levels of the tower.






The top level is a bit of a change in build, including a long connector build pole to connect it to ground level.





Oddly enough, the actual rocket is far less boring a build then the launch pad.  It has a very intresting way of building the fuselage, which is something I carried along in builds later on after I saw this.




Using long technic beams, round bricks are then stacked onto the rocket to bulk it out, with the lovely sand green to make up the center.

The final thing to do is to add the missile top to the build and place the rocket in it`s berthing.


The full set completed:

And of course some extra parts:

I really enjoy the look of this set, even though it isn`t the most exciting of actual builds.  But it does give a great piece of atmosphere to your desk or mancave, and it makes you look like a scholar of space exploration ;-)


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