For their 10-day mission around the Moon, all four members of NASA’s Artemis II are wearing a special OMEGA Speedmaster X-33 watch. Read more about it below.
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We have lift off! NASA’s Artemis II has successfully blasted off on humanity’s first crewed lunar voyage in over half a century. While the crew won’t land on the Moon’s surface, their journey around its far side and back will be mark the furthest any astronaut has ever travelled in space.
The four crew members – Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor J. Glover and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, plus Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency – took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 18.35 local time on Wednesday 1st April.
Each accomplished astronaut has been allowed to carry with them a small number of personal items. Jeremy Hansen, for example, has taken Moon-shaped pendants for his wife and three children, engraved with the phrase ‘Moon and back’ and set with their birthstones. He has also taken maple syrup and maple cookies for the historic voyage.
Pilot Victor J. Glover, meanwhile, is taking his wedding ring and family heirlooms, along with a Bible and an assortment of ‘inspirational quotations’ edited by Rusty Schweichkart, an astronaut aboard the Apollo 9 mission.
And strapped to all of their wrists? A special OMEGA Speedmaster X-33. Cased in hardwearing grade-2 titanium, with a titanium bracelet, the watch has been issued from NASA’s own inventory of qualified flight hardware. Equipped with OMEGA’s 1666 calibre, each quartz-powered timepiece boasts a 36-month battery life, an anti-reflective and scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, plus chronograph, day-date and alarm functions.
This launch marks an exciting new chapter in the watchmaker lunar history, since there’s been an OMEGA aboard every crewed lunar journey since 1969 – including being the watch that made it onto the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission.
Next stop, Mars?
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