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Project Hail Mary

A spinning spaceship that pulls off the one trick the book made you desperate to see.

Brick Rated Score

4.1/5

Set 11389 · 2026

Pieces830

Minifigs1

Year2026

Set number11389

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The verdict

I did not expect LEGO to ever touch Project Hail Mary, and the fact that they built the whole set around the centrifuge trick tells me a designer read the book and cared.

Turn the crank and the crew module detaches, swings ninety degrees, and spins with the thrusters exactly the way it does in the story, which is genuinely lovely to watch. The catch is that getting there is a very Technic build, and if pins and beams leave you cold you will feel that in your hands before you feel the payoff. If you loved the novel or you follow LEGO space, this is an easy yes at ninety-nine dollars.

Best for: Readers of the Andy Weir novel who want the centrifuge moment on a shelf

The full review

What it is

The moment that sold me on this set is the same moment the book builds to: the Hail Mary shifting from flight mode into its spinning centrifuge, the crew quarters pulling away from the thrusters to make its own gravity. LEGO built the entire model around pulling that off, and it works. You turn a crank, the central module detaches and swings ninety degrees, and then the whole thing rotates together in a clean circle. Turn it back and it locks into travel shape again. For anyone who read Andy Weir's novel and pictured that maneuver in their head, seeing it happen in plastic on a display stand is a small thrill. It is an 830-piece set from the 2026 Icons line, tied to the Phil Lord and Chris Miller film, and it captures the spirit of the story better than I assumed a licensed set ever could.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the building, though, because this is where opinions split. The set is very Technic-heavy. Six numbered bags, and a big chunk of them is pins, beams, axles, and the mechanism that drives the spin. Several reviewers said the build itself was not especially enjoyable, more assembling a gearbox than sculpting a spaceship, and I understand that completely. It is a fairly quick build for the piece count, but quick does not always mean satisfying, and if you build LEGO to switch your brain off, the technical fiddliness here will do the opposite. The other honest caveat is price by region. In the US, ninety-nine dollars for this much set plus a working function is genuinely reasonable. Everywhere else the conversion is steep enough that the value argument softens a lot. And there are no new molds, so if you collect for parts, know going in that you are buying the model, not the elements.

Who it's for

So here is how I would sort it. If you loved the book, or you are excited for the film, or you keep a shelf of LEGO spacecraft, get this without overthinking it. The finished model looks sharp, the mechanism earns its place, and Ryland Grace in his red suit is a genuinely nice minifig. If you build mainly for the calm of the process, or you are outside North America and the price makes you wince, this is a fair one to skip. It rewards people who care about what it represents more than people who care about how it feels to snap together.

The parts story

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

Building this is closer to assembling a machine than stacking a ship, and you should know that walking in. The early bags lay down a stand and a Technic core, all pins and beams and axles, and the payoff mechanism does not reveal itself until the final two bags. When it clicks together and the crank actually drives the crew module out, around, and into its spin, the earlier grind makes sense. But the middle stretch is the kind of technical work that feels like a means to an end rather than a pleasure in itself, and that is the fairest thing I can say about it.

On standout parts, the honest headline is that designer Nathan Heigert confirmed no frames were available for new molds, so there is nothing brand-new to hunt here. What you do get is a fully printed set with zero stickers, which at this price is a real treat, and a Ryland Grace minifig with two printed faces and detailed torso and legs. Rocky, the pentagonal five-limbed alien who cannot become a minifig, is brick-built with a printed dish on top, five dark tan limbs, and a tiny camera and texture pad as a nod to how he communicates in the book. It is a clever solve for a character that should be impossible in LEGO.

Fun facts

01Rocky's body is a pentagon with five identical limbs, one per side, which makes a normal minifig physically impossible, so LEGO brick-built him instead with a printed dish on top.
02The set has zero stickers: every decorated element, including both of Ryland Grace's faces, is printed.
03The Ryland Grace minifig is the first LEGO version of the character Ryan Gosling plays in the March 2026 Amazon MGM film directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
04Designer Nathan Heigert has said no frames were available for new molds, so the entire model was built from existing LEGO parts.