Chrysler Jupiter-C Missile w/Explorer I Satellite (1958)

Scale: 1/48
Initial Release: 1959
Medium: Styrene
Kit Rarity: 2

About the Design

First successfully test-fired in 1956, the Jupiter C was actually a Redstone missile (a modified Redstone) adapted for satellite-launching missions.  Based heavily on Werner von Braun's WWII-era V-2, the Jupiter C made history on January 31, 1958 when -- following the failure of the Navy's Vanguard satellite launch the previous December -- it launched Explorer 1, America's first successful orbital satellite.

About the Kit

This Hawk kit has been released multiple times; first in the late 1950s, again in the late 1960s (with new box art), and then in the mid-1990s by Glencoe.  This is by far the largest of all the plastic Jupiter C kits produced by the major American model manufacturers, standing more than a foot-and-a-half tall.

This particular kit was built from the 1960s reissue and was, in fact, built in the late 1960s (when I didn't know better), hence the god-awful gray paint scheme.