A Well-deserved Moon Watch

In order to thank Omega for its outstanding contribution to Apollo 13 and the human moon landing mission, NASA awarded it the Snoopy Award. NASA said that it was grateful to the Omega Speedmaster watch for helping astronauts return to Earth. Omega's Speedmaster Moonwatch was secretly tested by NASA at that time. It was also in this extreme environment that the unprecedented rigorous test that challenged the performance limit of the watch was completed, which led to the story of the "successful failure" of Apollo 13.

In 1963, after the end of the "Mercury Project", NASA astronauts proposed to the flight mission director Deke Slayton that they hoped to uniformly assign a watch with sufficient performance to the astronauts so that they could be competent for all future manned flight missions. Before that, astronauts all wore private watches to perform missions. In the completely weightless outer space, the performance of the watches was uneven and could not provide accurate timing for the astronauts at all. Therefore, NASA is re-evaluating the mission equipment for the "Gemini" and "Apollo" missions. The following year, Slayton sent out procurement requests to several watch brands, hoping that they would provide "high-quality chronographs". After the invitation was issued, only four watch brands dared to meet this harsh challenge, and Omega was one of them.

Engineer James Ragan was the head of flight mission watch testing at the time. When he received these chronographs, he was the first to eliminate one of the pocket watches. In the end, the watches of three brands entered the follow-up tests, and each watch had to pass 11 tests: including a high temperature test, in which the watch was exposed to 70 degrees Celsius for 48 consecutive hours, and then in a partial vacuum environment, it was subjected to a high temperature test of 93 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes. Then there was a low temperature test, in which the watch was subjected to a low temperature of -18 degrees Celsius for 4 hours. The vacuum test was to heat the watch in a vacuum chamber and then immediately freeze it to -18 degrees Celsius, and repeat this cycle 15 times.

The humidity test is to test the watch for 10 consecutive 24-hour cycles at 25 to 70 degrees Celsius in an environment with a humidity of 95%. The watch is also placed in a pure oxygen environment at 70 degrees Celsius for 48 consecutive hours to test its corrosion resistance. The impact test simulates the environment of space flight, subjecting the watch to 6 impacts of 40 G in 6 different directions. The vibration test simulates the extreme vibration during the launch of the spacecraft, and the watch is subjected to triaxial vibration with a vibration frequency of 5 to 2,000 Hz and an acceleration of 8.8 G. There are also acceleration tests, low pressure tests, high pressure tests, and noise tests for the watch.

Two watches were left in place during the high temperature test phase. One had the chronograph second hand deformed and entangled with other hands, and the other had the watch mirror deformed and fell off the case. After going through all the cruel challenges, only the Omega Speedmaster watch passed all the tests. Best cheap watches online, discover our affordable replica Omega Speedmaster watches collection. Wide range of luxury watches brands.