NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander (10266): two hours, and it comes apart the way the real one did
This is one of the quickest builds in the library, and it is not Technic. The Lunar Lander is a Creator Expert display set from 2019, made for the fiftieth anniversary of the landing: 1,087 pieces, two astronauts, and a 26 by 28 stud slab of the Moon to stand it on. Nothing is motorised. What it has instead is a descent stage built as an octagon on ball joints, four legs that are more Technic than they look, and an ascent stage that lifts off on two clips and opens into three pieces.
It is in the Brick Club library. Below is what comes apart and what does not, how the four bag stages go, and the things the reviewers tripped over. No member diaries yet, so this one is written from six reviews and Brickset’s data rather than our own returns.
Why this one is worth an evening
The gold is the point. The real lander was wrapped in foil for heat and micrometeoroid protection, and the set copies it with metallised gold parts and reflective stickers. Brick Architect counted 72 parts in metallised gold, tiles, cheese slopes, corner tiles and the four 4×4 dishes for the feet; The Brothers Brick made it 90 in two shades of gold, which presumably takes in the astronauts’ visors. New Elementary says the coating has got tougher too: the old metallised parts had to be kept under glass to stay mint, these take a beating before they show wear. Useful to know on a kit that goes through the post.
The manual is 122 pages and the first several are about the Apollo programme, with a side by side of the real lander and the brick one. There are eighteen stickers on a reflective foil sheet, most of them going onto black tiles, and the reviewers split on them. Jay’s Brick Blog called them the main fault, Brick Architect thinks the model looks great without them, and Brickset thinks they were the right call because the foil on the real lander was too irregular to do in bricks.
If you have built the Saturn V (21309), the descent stage will feel familiar: another octagon clad face by face, though built with a very different technique, and The Brothers Brick warns it needs the same patience and suggests building it with someone. It is also small, about 22 cm across and 20 cm tall on a base that fits a desk, which the Saturn V does not.
What actually moves and what comes apart
Nothing is motorised and nothing is geared. This is a display model with parts that separate and hatches that open, built the way the real vehicle came apart, and that is what this section covers.
The ascent stage sits on the descent stage on two clips. Pull it up and it comes away cleanly, and you can put it back as often as you like; the real one only did this once. Underneath you find the ascent engine bell and, inside the descent stage, the fuel and oxidiser tanks as red and white round bricks, which you only see with the top off. The round docking hatch on the top is present but does not open.
The cabin is built as three parts joined with clip hinges, so the front comes off and the rest opens up. Inside are stickered control panels that Brickset calls remarkably intricate, with the small windows, the egress hatch and the yellow levers, and a few studs so both astronauts can stand in there. Brickset found it cramped, which is accurate, though Jay’s Brick Blog thought there was plenty of room for both; the cylindrical cover over the ascent engine is left out, and with it in there would be little room for the minifigures. With the front removed you have a second way to display it.
The four legs look as if they will snap and they will not. Each is built as its own module, mostly Technic, and attached to the octagon at the right angle by ball joints and four 1×6 Technic links; New Elementary suspects the steering arm (part 15460) is behind the geometry. The cost is that the legs are rigid: the real ones folded for the flight out and you cannot recreate that here, and the contact probes below the real footpads are left off. The feet are 4×4 gold dishes on hinges, which is why the model can hardly stand upright on a flat table and wants the four indents in the base.
Two ladder pieces run down one leg with a gap under the bottom rung, and under the ladder is the plaque with the two hemispheres and the signatures, a sticker on a black tile (the original was silver) with wording too small to read. Two hatches on the descent stage fold outwards. One holds the television camera that filmed Armstrong on the ladder, three pieces with a printed tape-reel tile that dates from 1990. The other holds the Laser Ranging Retroreflector, a 2×2 tile with a sticker, and there is a spot on the base by the flag to deploy it.
The Moon comes first and it is the stand. A 26 by 28 stud slab, three layers of plate and tile on a lattice of black 2-wide plates, edged in black tiles with a printed nameplate at the front, which is the Architecture formula. There is a crater (the real site was smoother; LEGO added it so the surface read as the Moon), scattered rocks, an attachment point for the flag, and four indents that the footpads sit in. The footprints are the best bit: a zigzag of light grey plates showing through the dark surface along the front edge.
How the build goes
The reviews disagree about how many bags there are, and Brick Architect settles it: four numbered stages, eight bags between them (two, two, one and three), plus an unnumbered bag of big parts and the one with the manual and stickers. Brick Architect timed each stage and the total came to two hours; The Brothers Brick says a couple of hours as well.
The Moon
Base first. Black 2-wide plates in a lattice, grey plates over them, then the surface: tiles and exposed studs, cheese slopes for rubble, the crater, the footprints and the flag. Nothing tricky, Brick Architect says, but well done. The unnumbered bag of large parts is used up here.
The octagon
The core of the descent stage is built round a 10×10 octagonal plate with an open centre, a 25 year old part that is rare now and fits perfectly here. The four off-grid faces are the clever bit: red and white Technic bricks with axle holes take a bar with a ball on the end, and each black face hangs on just two ball sockets at 45 degrees. Brick Architect was surprised how rigid it comes out. Check every face is seated before the gold goes over it.
Gold and legs
The first half of the bag is tiling the outside in gold, the second half is the four leg modules and attaching them with the 1×6 links. The top of the descent stage is a mixture of sideways building, 2×2 corner tiles and the octagonal plate. Try the model on its base before you go on.
The ascent stage
One stage, one complete assembly. Almost everything is grey and black brick, arch and slope, built as three sections on clip hinges with the stickered panels inside. Thruster clusters on their click hinges, dishes and aerials on top, engine bell underneath. Brick Architect found it repetitive next to the two stages before it. Clip it onto the descent stage and you are done.
No member diaries for this one yet, so these come from the reviews rather than from our own returns.
- Count the parts before you start. Brick Architect’s copy had a black 1×2 jumper missing and a reddish brown headlight brick in its place, a part the set does not use. If a bag on your copy is short, tell us rather than substituting.
- The octagon is repetitive and easy to drift on. Eight faces, four of them on ball joints at 45 degrees. The Brothers Brick suggests a build partner. Seat each face fully before the gold tiles go over it, because you will not get back in without lifting them.
- Stickers on foil. Eighteen of them, reflective, mostly on black tiles. Apply any that are missing with the tile off the model and flat; Brick Architect’s view is that the model looks great without them anyway.
- Follow the instructions, not the box. RacingBrick spotted that the slopes with slots face one way in the instructions and the other way in the box art and official photos. Either works; just be consistent.
- Do not try to fold the legs, and keep it on the base. The legs are rigid by design and the dish feet sit on hinges, so off the base the lander can barely stand up. The ascent stage is only held on by two clips, so lift the model by the descent stage.
On the shelf
Finished it is 22 cm across, 20 cm deep and 20 cm tall on its base, which is desk sized. The black tile border makes it read like a picture in a frame, as The Brothers Brick put it, and the gold against the dark grey surface is what everyone photographs. The rear of the ascent stage is a plain wall of grey bricks, accurate but dull, so it wants to face out from a wall.
The astronauts are the weak point, and Brickset and The Brothers Brick both say so. Generic yellow heads with no hair, the same NASA torso on both, no Apollo 11 patch, no flag on the arm, and a helmet that reads as a diving helmet with Technic holes behind the head. Brickset’s verdict is that the set matches the standard the Saturn V set, and it belongs next to one if you have one.
This is the one for you when you want a break between the big Technic cars, or when there is someone in the house who will read the manual. It is two hours, not a weekend, and the only place to get it wrong is the octagon. Check the bags before you start, put the front of the ascent stage back on before you photograph it, and keep it on its base. If the Perseverance rover (42158) is the Technic answer to a NASA set, this is the display one.
If you like this one, try
The other space and film sets in the library that are not big Technic builds. The Perseverance rover is the Technic NASA set with a working rocker-bogie suspension; the DB5, the ECTO-1 and the 1989 Batmobile are brick-built display cars with mechanical tricks inside.
The Apollo 11 Lunar Lander is in the library
Technic Fan gets up to 6 kits a year, Master Builder up to 12. Delivery both ways is included and the prepaid return label is in the box.