Not so long ago (12 years in fact) in a Galaxy far far away, a crew of intrepid Lego astronauts were exploring the mysterious and extremely chilly Ice Planet.   Important in this hostile environment is a lot of bright orange so that the astronauts can see and locate one another amongst the ice fields, snow drifts and blizzards.  Skis, snowshoes and chainsaws to cut through ice are essential equipment.  Combine these and… you get the idea!

The Ice Planet explorers, with their bright orange visors and equipment.  There are Ice Planet Chiefs with the moustaches, Ice Planet Astronauts without moustaches and… the Ice Babe!  The only female astronaut in the Lego Space universe up to this point.

Let’s have a look at their base and equipment.

If you were on an Ice Planet and needed to tunnel through some ice, you would definitely need one of these: an Ice Tunnelator.  With a bright orange chainsaw mounted on the front and bright orange skis attached to the back, this man with his bright orange visor is well equipped to take on any ice that he might find in his way.

One of the main activities on the Ice Planet is to launch rockets carrying probes.  The Ice Station Odyssey has two rockets ready to be launched, and two probes for them to carry into orbit.  There is a launch pad, a vehicle for driving the rockets from place to place and a magnetic crane to transfer rockets between the vehicle, launch pad and rocket storage area.  There is also a sled for exploring the surrounding area.

To fly around and explore the Ice Planet, the Deep Freeze Defender is the ideal space ship for the job.  It houses a rocket and probe which to launch, as well as a small space ship which can be launched from the lab module to the rear.  The whole ship is modular and can be reconfigured as required:

At the back is the lab / launcher module with the small scout ship in launch position.  To the right is the centre, rocket launcher module with the rocker folded down in its storage position, so not visible here.  On the left front are the two pilot pods, which can fly off on their own or be attached to either of the other modules independently as required.  What more could you ask for when exploring an Ice Planet?

Ice Planet team photo… there are a few sets missing from here, namely the Ice Planet Scooter, Celestial Sled, Blizzard Baron and Ice-Sat V.  I used to have a couple of these and still have the instructions, but have lost the sets somewhere along the way.

What are the defining ideas for the Ice Planet 2002?  Obviously their colour scheme with the white and blue combined with the bright orange and their equipment: lots of skis and chainsaws.  Their Ice Planet logo appears in a number of places: on the blue slopes on the front of their smaller vehicles, on the large hinged cover of the rocket launcher section of the Deep Freeze Defender and on the radar on top of the Ice Station Odyssey.  They only seem to have one style of sloped computer and one flat computer.