Phil's
Armada & Energon Astroscope,
Micron Legend Mir
and
Cybertron Scrap Iron
Review

Astroscope

Astroscope is a space station that forms the front of the barrel of the Requiem Blaster. There's two pairs of solar panels mounted a third of the way along the station with the opposite end of the station being comprised of a spring loaded missile launcher. Six and half years later the launcher is still in good condition on mine. The main colour of the station is a darker blue that's unique to this toy in the Space team. The missile, trigger & supports for the solar panels are red which is shared with both other members and the solar panels and a block on the side of the station are a lighter blue that's also used on Skyblast.

The Minicon socket is mounted on the other side of the station to the the solar panels closer to that end of the station. Astroscope looks good bolted onto a character - a kind of futuristic missile launcher.

TF: Fold the opposing solar panels together to form the legs and rotate the toy so these point down under it. Bend the missile launcher and opposite end of the station down. Fold up the block on the side of the station. Fold the halves of the middle of the station up round it - they clip in place.

The resulting robot has a very big upper body and missile arm and thin legs formed from the solar panels. The legs look like they shouldn't balance at all but actually they do quite well, especially without the missile in the right arm.. He has ball jointed hips, arms that fold up at the sides and a bending left elbow. Sadly the missile arm can't be raised to fire in robot mode which is the only real black mark against the toy.

Clever toy, especially how the TF works.

In Japan Astroscope was known as Mir, after the Russian space station, and appeared with the other two official members of the Space team in Minicon pack numbered MM-13. There's no giftset featuring this team as their obvious partner Jetfire is a toy larger than Supercon size.

Original Astroscope review: "uite a clever TF this, most of the station basically folds up and bends round the middle bit to create the upper body and arms, and the legs are the solar panels folded together. The legs look like they shouldn't balance at all but actually they do quite well, especially without the missile in the right arm. The Powering socket is towards the rear of the space station and on the right shoulder "

Unreleased Armada Astroscope

See also Remy's Act 281

The Space Team's first brush with misfortune occurs late on in Transformers Armada - along with the Adventure & Street Speed teams who were also in Armada Minicons wave three - when their Unicron Battles recolour was cancelled. Red remains red in this team, but the other common colour in the team becomes black.

The blue used for Astroscope's body becomes an off white/grey for this release.

Dimension-X Mir

The Dimension-X Space Team were issued as Micron Legend toy number MM-14 and are easier to obtain than the first wave of Micron Legend Dimension-X toys. Red becomes an sandy olive colour throughout the release, the light blue on Mir & Apollo as well as the black on Move becomes brown and the white of Apollo & blue of Mire becomes dark green with lime green zigzag patterns on it suggesting a sort of radiation theme.

This is the only time that the Space team gets the same paint scheme used on all three parts.

Change Micron Mir

Change Micron Mir is nearly identical to Astroscope. The only changes are that it's missing some of the paint operations on the solar panels and the panels & head are now the same blue as the rest of the space station.

This release of the Space team is remoulded to fix Apollo(Skyblast) but the remoulds don't alter Mir

Energon Astroscope

The Space team did eventually get a western recolour when they were released with Energon Ultra Magnus, making them rare in the US and very common in the UK. Ultra Magnus was originally scheduled to come with a Street Speed Team repaint set, it's unknown quite why this change was made. See the Requiem Blaster review for one of the consequences of this choice.

Red becomes grey on all three toys and the light blue used on Astroscope & Skyblast becomes a teal blue. Astroscope's dark blue becomes grey.

Rather plain compared with his predecessor.

Unreleased Universe Astroscope

The Space team were next scheduled to be released in Transformers Universe as the Spacewarp team with Spacewarp - a Decepticon Armada Jetfire repaint that was eventually released through the Transformers Collectors Club as Astrotrain.

Red remains red on all three toys and the light blue becomes a pale grey blue. Astroscope's dark blue becomes a rust red..

Scrap Iron

The Space team return in the fourth & final wave of Cybertron Minicon VS packs as the Decepticon Deep Space team fighting against the Autobot Street Action team that make up the Energon version of Perceptor. Scrap Iron is the repaint of Astroscope and is packed with the Grindor repaint (the hovercraft)

For this team Red becomes Purple, Light Blue becomes Grey, Darker Blue - used on Astroscope/Scrap Iron - becomes a very Pale Grey, Black (only on Payload/Blastcharge) becomes an Off White - these 2 are very similar but different when you see them next to each other and White (on Skyblast/Backblast)becomes a Rust Red.

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