Estes Industries is a model rocket company that was started in Denver, Colorado, USA.

Following a hostile takeover of the Damon Corporation in 1989, Estes Industries was divested and became part of Hobby Products.

[15] "Mabel" was a machine designed to safely and inexpensively manufacture model rocket engines for Model Missiles Incorporated, primarily using compressed air for machine operations, effectively eliminating the risk of electrical sparks inadvertently igniting rocket propellant.

The table then advanced through multiple stations where the nozzle, propellant, delay and ejection components were added.

[16] Along with several smaller rockets, Estes sponsored an indoor launch of a model of a Saturn V at halftime of the Bluebonnet Bowl in the Houston Astrodome on December 31, 1969.

[17][18] Estes produced a wide variety of rocket model kits, normally using paperboard tubing for the fuselage and balsa wood for fins and nose cones.

Early models tended to be relatively simple in design, differing in size, number of stages and recovery method.

Another particularly well-known design from this era was the Camroc, a small camera that replaced the nose cone of larger models that was designed to take a single image on a small disk of film when the motor had burned out and the rocket was facing downward.

In the 1960s, Estes featured scale models patterned after the popular NASA designs such as the Gemini-Titan and Saturn-V crewed rockets.

Later model kits from the late 1970s and early 1980s tended to be more for show than performance, including a series of scale or sport-scale designs and "exotics".

During the 1990s the model line was dramatically reduced, and the ones that were left were typically very simple "three fins and a nose cone" designs that were partially or entirely preassembled.

This made Estes include a new style of screw-on retaining rings with the Pro Series II kits to accommodate rear retention.

[23] A research project conducted in 2000 by Ellis Langford (who later became president of Estes Industries, LLC) investigated the performance of black powder model rocket motors at higher altitudes.

Estes Industries claimed specifications are based on testing at the Penrose manufacturing plant at an altitude of approximately 5000 feet, versus the three studies and National Association of Rocketry certification tests, all of which were performed at altitudes much nearer sea level.