Rejoice fellow space and brick nutters, because Lego is going release an official Mars Curiosity set! The original model was designed by Stephen Pakbaz, an actual NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s mechanical engineer who worked in the mission. Pakbaz entered his creation in Lego Cuusoo, a website that allows fans to submit models that could be turned into real sets, like the incoming Back to the Future or the Minecraft sets.
He got the necessary 10,000 votes to enter the official evaluation phase and finally got into a final selection round, which he won.
The losers? A small set inspired in the Sadly, the Sandcrawler lost. Not surprisingly, since it would have been the largest, most complex Lego set in history. Here’s the official Lego Cuusoo post and video announcing the next set.