Building the Lego Creator Shuttle

I was minding my own business in the local Lidl, shopping for some breakfast items. As I turned a corner into the infamous “Middle of Lidl” aisle, I spotted a Lego Shuttle set that I wasn’t aware existed… of course I had to get it (it was the only one left too). Here’s a short article about my experience building it.

I already have the much larger Shuttle Discovery Lego set to build (probably in February when it’s really cold, dark and snowy) but I thought this “Creator” series one would go nicely with my Creator Land Rover Defender that I acquired a few months ago.

Lego have actually made a few Shuttle kits in the Creator and City series… this particular one is the 31134 version. It includes instructions for a couple of other builds, but of course you’re only going to want to make a Shuttle from it! The styling of this one reminds me of the Soviet Buran programme orbiter.

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Here’s my Lidl receipt… this set is priced nicely at under £10 in most places. As you can see, one of these items doesn’t meet the brief of “go to the shop and buy breakfast”…

And here’s a picture of everything I bought once I’d got it all home.

As with previous Lego builds I’ve documented on this site, I made a video showing how it came together. Here’s the finished product with the build process sped up to 3 minutes:

And here’s some still pictures of this set:

Completed Shuttle on the shipping ship with the payload doors closed.

Completed Shuttle on the shipping ship with the payload doors open and satellite raised on the arm.

Completed Shuttle on the project mat with the instruction book.

Completed Shuttle on the project mat with the payload doors open and satellite raised on the arm.

I tried a different recording technique for this video. Previously I’d used the front facing camera on my iPhone 7 and a small desktop tripod. This time I recorded with the Logitech webcam that sits on top of my iMac. As with previous Lego build videos, I edited the video in iMovie using it to remove the original background noise, add titles and speed things up. The music is called “Coffee on the Patio” and is by AVBE. I got it from uppbeat.

If you’d like to get your own Creator Shuttle, pick up a kit over at the Lego website! If you’re interested in learning more about real Space Shuttles, check out the Smithsonian’s page for Discovery. I’ve been lucky to visit all of the remaining Shuttles in retirement, as well as Enterprise (the Shuttle programme atmospheric flight test vehicle - details). Here’s a pic I took at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport in Virginia when they received Discovery and sent Enterprise up to New York City for display there.

Shuttles Discovery and Enterprise at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Dulles Airport Virginia.

You can also visit the Buran aerodynamic analogue (known as OK-GLI) at the technical museum in Speyer Germany. I was lucky enough to be able to go there whilst on a business trip, here’s a photo I took…

Buran aerodynamic analogue in a museum in Speyer, Germany.

If you’d like to learn more about the Buran programme, check out the Wikipedia page for it.

Here are my previous Lego builds…

Other Lego Shuttle kits that are or have been available:

Creator 31134 Shuttle (the one I built in this article).
Space Shuttle Discovery 10283 (big set).
Creator 31117 Space Shuttle Adventure (this one is retired now, would love to get one as it reminds me even more of Buran).
Space Shuttle Launch 1682 (retired).
Space Shuttle 3367 (retired).
Shuttle Launch Pad 6339 (retired).
Shuttle Launching Crew 6346 (retired).
Shuttle Trascon 6544 (retired).
Space Shuttle Discovery STS-31 (retired).

Have fun and thanks for reading!

Main photograph from The Energia-Buran Archive.

Building the Lego Creator Shuttle

Written by Simon Prickett