City

Deep Space Rocket and Launch Control

A little kid's whole space program in one box, and it stands nearly 50cm tall on the pad.

Brick Rated Score

4.2 out of 54.2/5

Set 60228 · 2019

Pieces837
Minifigs6
Year2019
Set number60228

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The verdict

This is the set that made me forgive City for years of forgettable fire trucks.

It is a NASA-inspired play system with a modular rocket, a working monorail, a rover, and a telescope, and it earned Construction Toy of the Year for good reason. It is aimed squarely at kids rather than display-minded adults, so temper your expectations on detail, but as a play machine it is close to perfect. If you want something a child will actually keep playing with, this is one of the best City sets of its era.

Best for: Kids aged 7 and up who are genuinely space-obsessed

The full review

What it is

The first time I put the finished rocket up on its launch pad I actually laughed, because it stands nearly 50cm tall and my kitchen table suddenly felt too small for it. This is the anchor set of LEGO's 2019 City Space wave, the one that leaned hard into real NASA Mars-mission inspiration instead of the goofy alien stuff City used to do. You get a modular multi-stage rocket, a launch control tower with a countdown gimmick, a monorail that runs a proper multi-stop loop, a rover with an articulated grabbing arm, and a little space telescope with fold-out solar panels. It is less a single model and more a whole tiny space program, and that is exactly why it clicks.

The catch

I will be straight with you about where it falls short. If you are an adult buying this to sit on a shelf, the rocket itself is going to look a touch stubby and cartoonish next to something like the Saturn V or the newer Creator shuttles. Spread 837 pieces across a rocket, a tower, a monorail, a rover, and a telescope, and no single piece of it ends up feeling dense or intricate. A few of the minifigs also double up on roles you may already have from other City Space boxes, so the crew can feel slightly generic. And at its original 100 dollar price it was never the cheapest way to get parts.

Who it's for

So who is this actually for? Kids, wholeheartedly. This was Construction Toy of the Year, and it deserved it, because the play value is enormous and the build is smartly broken into bags that each make a discrete piece a child can finish and be proud of. If you have a seven-or-eight-year-old who talks about astronauts at dinner, buy it without a second thought. If you are an adult collector chasing display pieces or clever engineering, this is not your set, and that is fine. Just know that it retired in December 2021, so the sealed-box price has climbed well past what it cost new.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a genuinely lovely afternoon, especially alongside a kid. LEGO split the whole thing into numbered bags where each bag builds one complete sub-model with its own little instruction booklet, so instead of dumping 837 pieces into one intimidating pile you get a satisfying rhythm of finish-a-thing, finish-another-thing. The rocket comes together in stackable modules, the monorail track clips into a loop, and the tower has a fold-out countdown function that kids love flipping. Nothing here is technically demanding, but the pacing is excellent and the sense of assembling a working system rather than one static model keeps it fresh right to the end.

On the parts side this is a play set, not a parts pack, so set your expectations accordingly. The real treasure is the monorail system, which is one of the few affordable ways to get that motorless track and those cars, and it commands a premium on the secondary market on its own. You also get the nicely printed astronaut and technician torsos, the fold-out solar-panel elements on the telescope, and the rover's articulated grabber arm. There are no headline new molds to chase here, but the trans-clear canopy pieces, the printed launch-tower panels, and that monorail track make it a more interesting box to break down than the piece count suggests.

Fun facts

  • 01The set won the Toy Association's Construction Toy of the Year award, beating out much pricier competition.
  • 02It headlined LEGO's 2019 City Space relaunch, which was designed with real NASA Mars-mission missions as the reference point rather than fantasy sci-fi.
  • 03The assembled rocket stands close to 50cm tall once it is stood up on its launch pad.
  • 04It retired in December 2021 and sealed copies now trade well above the original 99.99 dollar RRP.

What other builders say

This write-up is grounded in real reviews and builder discussion, not just one opinion. A few worth reading:

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