Mail that is flown in a rocket to commemorate its launch; may then be sent to recipients via snail mail

Rockets were apparently used as early as 1902 to deliver mail from ship to shore in the Fiji islands. No known covers survive. On February 2, 1931 Friedrich Schmiedl successfully launched a rocket containing 102 covers and cards from the Austrian town of Schöckl to the village of Radegund. This date is regarded as the beginning of rocket mail usage. On September 9, 1931 Schmiedl initiated the world's first official rocket mail service. Many countries soon followed suit. However, a number of spectacular failures, including the explosion of a canister containing some 30,000 pieces of mail in Northern Scotland, doomed rocket mailed service as a viable entity. Today rocket mail is primarily used for commemorative purposes.