This is an assembled version of the final production model of the first commercially made U.S. flying model rocket kit, manufactured in June 1959 by Galactic Enterprises Inc. The model is named the Aerobee-Hi and is based on the sounding rocket of the same name which flew experiments for the Naval Research Laboratory. It has a pasteboard body, balsa fins, rubber nose, and a plastic parachute. A solid propellant rocket motor propels the model, and then at the end of the vertical flight it forces the release of a parachute. The model is then retrieved and can be used again. The model is launched from a launch pad, with a hand-held launch controller being used to ignite the motor.
G. Harry Stine, one of the American pioneers in the field of flying rocket and missile models, donated the model to the Smithsonian in 1973.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.