Lego Education will send four minifigures (including Kyle and Kate) to the moon in 2022 on NASA's Artemis 1 lunar mission.
Four Lego minifigures will take a ride around and around the moon.
NASA's Artemis 1 mission will launch in February 2022. The crew members of the mission will be tiny, and include "Kate" (from Lego Education's SPIKE Prime) and "Kyle", from Lego City.
Artemis 1 will be the agency's test launch of its new Space Launch System megarocket, and its Orion spacecraft. The mission will take the four minifigures on a trip around Moon with a crew that includes a "Moonikin", and vest-wearing dummies.
Minifigures are also featured in the educationally-focused "Build to Launch : A STEAM Exploration series," which is available on the Lego Education website. This series is for students, parents, and educators. This series contains 10 weeks of digital content on space and related topics in STEAM science, technology engineering and mathematics.
The minifigures have six ground controllers to support them, just like other astronauts. Lego Education released a statement Monday, November 8th, stating that each Space Team minifigure is a real-life counterpart (such as command pilot Kate or mission specialist Kyle) to help students better understand different roles, backgrounds and skills within the Artemis I team.
Lego Education said that each minifigure will be featured in episodes with their NASA counterparts. They also interact with teachers and students who ask questions and share their learning experiences via #BuildtoLaunch.
Lego has been a long-time supplier of minifigurines and projects based on real NASA missions. This includes several generations of Mars rovers for children and growing sets of Lego adult-style builds featuring iconic hardware such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Discovery space shuttle, the Saturn V which took Apollo 11 to orbit and the Apollo 11 Eagle Lander.
NASA published a guidebook detailing various collaborations between Lego, NASA and other agencies. It was released in 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary the Apollo 11 mission. The agency stated that NASA and LEGO Group have a long history in collaboration on projects that encourage curiosity and interest in STEM fields and space exploration.
Check out our Black Friday Lego Deals for Space Fans if you are looking for new Lego sets for your budding astronaut. You can also launch your holiday early with our best Lego advent calendars guide.
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