Here are all the watches that have gone into orbit and earned their space watch bragging rights – they’re not just Omega Speedmasters or Breitling Cosmonautes.
The 50s and 60s were a period of intense exploration, as humankind – who have for centuries looked up in admiration of the night skies – realised their dreams of going into space. Rockets developed in the latter half of the 20th century were finally powerful enough to overcome the forces of gravity and reach orbital velocities. Sputnik 1, the Soviet’s first artificial satellite, launched into space in 1957. A year later, NASA, America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced its intention to put a US astronaut into Earth’s orbit with the initiation of Project Mercury.
It was the start of what is to become known as the space race. Newspaper headlines reported on nothing else, and all around the world, eyes were set skyward with excitement. The race was driven by none other than the two world superpowers at the time – the US and the USSR – who were vying to send man into space.
As orbital missions drew closer, the general needs of astronauts in space came into question. What would they need to fulfil their missions? The Mercury Seven, under NASA’s programme, would unanimously request the provision of a wristwatch, which they would use as a backup device in the event the clocks in the cockpit malfunction.
And not just America. When Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, he too wore a watch over his spacesuit, a Russian brand called Sturmanskie that exclusively designed watches for the Russian military and navy troops.
At the time, the NASA office hadn’t provided astronauts with official watches, so many US astronauts wore their own personal watches on space flights. John Glenn, who became the first American in orbit, wore a Heuer 2915a stopwatch on his wrist during his landmark flight on Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962. And three months later, on May 24, Scott Carpenter became the second American to reach Earth’s orbit on his Mercury-Atlas 7 mission. On his wrist was the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute ref 809, which apart from being a chronograph – and one of the best aviation watches of the time – also came with the additional function of telling 24-hour time. Later, Walter “Wally” Schirra would become the third to orbit space, during the Mercury-Atlas 8 flight on October 3, 1962. On his wrist was his own Omega Speedmaster CK 2998.
Bulova was also a popular choice amongst NASA astronauts. Space fans may in fact already know that the Accutron Astronaut was made for astronauts. Originally named the Accutron GMT, the watch was issued to the Mercury-Atlas 9 crew in 1963 where it was assumed that the battery-powered Bulova 214 movement would survive the harsh environments of space more than a mechanical watch would.
By then, the solo-flight Mercury space programme was almost completed. The next scheduled space missions would include Gemini (two-man) and Apollo (three-man) flights, with a key goal to move about in space outside the spaceship. It was more pertinent than ever, that the astronaut’s equipment, including their wristwatches, would withstand and function in space.
Astronauts once again approached Flight Crew Operations Director Donald K. Slayton about providing a watch for use during training and flight. This time, NASA approved their request. Slayton issued an internal memo stating the need for a highly durable and accurate chronograph to be used by Gemini and Apollo flight crews. A request was also sent to different watch manufactures to provide wrist-worn chronographs for testing.
The tests that the NASA engineers devised could only be described as exceptionally radical, exceptionally brutal, and exceptionally strenuous. But then, they were dealing with exceptional conditions too. Space was uncharted territory and no one knew what conditions the astronauts would be facing. Not exactly.
First, the watches that were put to the test had to prove that they were waterproof, shockproof and anti-magnetic. In short, the chronographs had to be reliable and precise. The second phase of testing went way beyond normal procedures – the watches were tested against extreme temperatures, extreme shock, extreme pressure and extreme frequencies. In the end, only one watch survived. The Omega Speedmaster, originally designed for racing drivers, only lost the luminous material on the dial from the gruelling qualification process.
On March 1, 1965, the Speedmaster ST 105.003 was declared flight-qualified for all space missions under the Gemini programme. Three weeks later, the Speedmaster went to space officially for the first time on the wrists of Virgil Grissom and John Young during the Gemini III mission. The watches only had one slight modification – they were fitted with a Velcro strap so that the astronauts could wear them over their space suits. And on the Gemini IV mission on June 3 of the same year, Edward White wore a Speedmaster on the US’s first spacewalk.
Omega continued to accompany many a space mission after that, including the milestone moon landing in 1969 aboard Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the lunar surface, closely followed by Buzz Aldrin, who was wearing the Speedmaster Professional on his wrist. The story was that Armstrong had left his watch in the cockpit at the time.
The Apollo 13 mission was another moment in history for Omega when the Speedmaster watch was used to time the critical engine burns needed to ensure the safe re-entry of the heavily damaged spacecraft. Omega is often credited for the safe return of the astronauts on board, and for their services, the brand was awarded the coveted Silver Snoopy Award, the highest recognition given to those who have helped the American space programme.
The Omega Speedmaster was, and still is, the only watch to have survived NASA’s rigorous testing, and the only official watch that’s been approved to be worn outside a spacecraft.
But they’re not the first watch to have gone to space, nor are they the last. Space nerds and enthusiasts have worked hard to uncover all the watches that have gone to space. Omega has dominated the narrative – deservedly so of course – but there have been so many more interesting stories since.
Even though the Speedmaster was the official issue, astronaut Charles Conrad wore his own Glycine Airman on Gemini V in August 1965 and Gemini XI in September 1966. Interestingly, several Casios and Seikos made it to space during the Shuttle era from 1981 to 2011. No surprise as to how popular the GMT-Master and the GMT-Master II would be (not just on Earth it seems), as astronauts including NASA’s Lloyd Blain Hammond and Leroy Chiao were captured wearing them during their missions in the 1990s.
As space travel grows more popular, in 2009, Cirque du Soleil CEO Guy Laliberté wore his Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Unique Piece on the Soyuz TMA-16 to the Space Station in 2009, making it the most expensive watch to have been worn to space at the time. When Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa went to space aboard the Soyuz MS-20 in 2021, he took with him his Richard Mille RM27-02 Rafa Nadal.
For the first all-civilian orbital mission in 2021, IWC created the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition “Inspiration4” for each of the crew, each individually engraved for the astronaut based on their mission value: commander Jared Isaacman (Leadership), Sian Proctor (Prosperity), Hayley Arceneaux (Hope) and Chris Sembroski (Generosity). These four watches, when returned to Earth, were auctioned off for charity.
On January 19, 2022, Anton Shkaplerov was reported to be wearing the Panerai Radiomir 45mm PAM210 while working from the International Space Station. There are reportedly 1,899 watches that have flown to space thus far, according to a database built by US-based watch enthusiast Robert Jackson who leads a community of equally enthusiastic space fans to build a complete list of space watches based on empirical evidence.
And in case you’re wondering, we’ve looked. Yes, even Apple watches have made it to space.