The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has received a $15 million gift from the Boeing Company for its National Air and Space Museum, the Washington Post reports.

The gift, the largest corporate gift in Smithsonian history, will support the expansion of the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the Dulles International Airport annex of the main Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Even with the Boeing gift, museum officials said they still need to raise $25 million for the center, which opened in December 2003 and cost $311 million to build. "The gift positions us with about two-thirds of the money we need for phase two and gives us the ability to talk to people seriously about getting started with the remainder of the fundraising," said museum director Gen. J.R. Daily.

The entire Udvar-Hazy complex houses 220 airplanes as well as several spacecraft, including the shuttle Enterprise. The total cost of the expansion intimidated some donors, however. "One of the things that has been a drawback is we needed so much money that people staggered when they heard the amount," said Daily. "Now we can talk about $25 million."

In addition to its latest gift, Boeing, which has been closely associated with the Air and Space Museum, gave $5 million toward construction of the Udvar-Hazy Center in 1998, as well as $1.4 million for the museum's first interactive exhibit, How Things Fly, in 1996. "As a vital center for the preservation and growth of aviation history, science, and technology, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is one of America's great institutions, and we are honored to support it," said Boeing chairman Jim McNerney.