Omega SA - Omega Watches in Space Exploration

Omega Watches in Space Exploration

The selection of the "Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph" for American astronauts was the subject of a rivalry between Omega and Bulova.

All subsequent manned NASA missions also used this handwound wristwatch. NASA started selecting the chronograph in the early 1960s and automatic chronograph wristwatches were not available until 1969.

However all the instrument panel clocks and time-keeping mechanisms in the spacecraft on those space missions were Bulova Accutrons with tuning fork movements, because at the time NASA did not know how well a mechanical movement would work in zero gravity.

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