I had the opportunity to receive this set thanks to Brickcentral and LEGO to do a little review from a photographic point of view.
The ship continues the 2024 wave of new space sets, with the peculiar color scheme: white, reddish orange, sand blue and transparent black windscreen and glasses. As its name implies, modularity is definitely its biggest strength, because from it comes also a great playability. With just one set you get three different spaceships: the smallest one similar to the 60430 Interstellar Spaceship set, a second one if you add the geology module that features some exterior boxes for minerals storage and, inside, a monitor with the controls of a little robot (a sticker). Eventually, the complete model with the best part, imho: a large rounded hub, with a central table, and some cool fold-down elements, like a bed and a kitchen.
The whole spaceship is beautifully designed with some great touches, like in the head unit with the cockpit; I think that here the designers managed to achieve a cool shape with a nice piece usage.
THE MINIFIGURES
The set comes with 4 minifigures, an alien and a little geologic prospector robot. We have a blue suit man, meaning that he’s the pilot, a green suit woman, the scientist, an orange suit man, tech department, and a dark blue woman, the pilot department lead. I’m very happy to find that the head pilot is a woman, but my favorite one, hands down, is the tech guy, probably because of the cool design of the helmet, even it’s not an original mould. The head is printed with a goatee and hearing aids. Last but not least, the little alien that I think it’s a great addition for a multiracial crew. And it seems like the funny guy to me, maybe because of its mischievous look.
IN FRONT OF THE LENS
The ship is large, since it is 40 cm long, and that makes it a little difficult to photograph, at least if you are planning to photograph it while flying.
On the other hand, thanks to technic pins and some plates, it’s very sturdy and very swooshable. Definitely easier is to photograph just the front section of the ship, like I did with a proper support, in front of my TV to get the hyperspace effect.
You have to keep in mind that the interior of the cockpit is only four studs wide and the geology module only two studs wider. So the interiors of most parts of the ship are definitely small and if you want to take photos of the onboard life, there’s only one choice: a macro lens.
Most of the photos you see in this review were taken with my Olympus M.ZUIKO 60 mm f/2.8 MACRO. And sometimes I also had to tear some walls apart to get close enough. Like I did for the photo of the tech guy in the geology module or for the photo of the pilot and the alien in the cockpit.
This was the most challenging one, since not even the macro lens was enough and then it was the opportunity to test my new probe lens for iPhone.
The hub gives many chances of shots, both of the exterior, in a real (or fictional) landscape, and the interior, with all the playable elements.
The funniest one is surely the pizza, since I didn’t expect to find one on a spaceship… but, hey, lucky crew! Accidentally Abigail, the scientist (it’s always important to name your minifigures), is also a great pizza maker and the hypersonic oven helps to bake one of the best pizzas of the whole Orion quadrant. And Chzut (the little alien) loooves it.
Even if the hub is bigger than the rest of the ship, if you want to take photos like these ones, you have to remove one of the airlocks and the transparent round walls.
For the light I decided to use a cheap led string, because it was small enough to slip in almost every little gap, staying hidden. My choice was a cold light, because I imagine that type of light on a spaceship and I think that the result was fine.
For the last photos I wanted to shoot the exterior of the hub. Since the weather was not so good I decided to recreate an alien, desolated landscape in the comfort of my studio. I used some gray ornamental sand I bought online for the surface of the planet and the screen of my laptop for the background with the sky and the planet.
Even for the photo with Gordon, the tech guy staring at the violet crystal, I used the little led string, put inside the crystal. It was the only light of the whole scene.
CONCLUSIONS
I would give this set 9 out of 10. The whole building process is fun and it doesn’t take too much for the spaceship to come together. Once completed, it’s fun to play with and also to photograph, especially if you have a macro lens and you’re a space fan.
Available since January, at a price of £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99, with its 717 pieces, it’s definitely a great set for any space fan.