Introducing the 2021 Speedmaster Collection

The 2021 Speedmaster

Omega announces the 21st century version of the hallowed Speedmaster, with redesigns inspired by the ST05.012 and powered by the Master Chronometer Certified Calibre 3861.

Having celebrated 50 years since the Speedmaster accompanied humankind on our first journey to the Moon, Omega has now decided that for the reimagined Speedmaster for 2021, it will seek inspiration from one of three references that were “Flight Qualified for all Manned Space Missions,” on June 1, 1965 by the powers that be at NASA.

The story goes that, James H. Ragan, retired NASA Project Engineer and Program Manager and Petros Protopapas, OMEGA International Brand Heritage Manager chronicles in the tome Moonwatch Only that in the lead-up to the Gemini missions, the Agency saw the need to “test, select and certify” a complete array of standard equipment for the astronauts’ use. One such equipment on the list was originally a request that was made by the astronauts themselves, “a watch for use during training and flight.”

Flight Crew Operations Director Deke Slayton took on the task of finding this watch by issuing an internal memo that listed the need for a, “highly durable and accurate chronograph to be used by Gemini and Apollo flight crews.” The memo then passed on to the hands of James Ragan. It was his task to send out the request for quotation to a list of watchmakers, stated earlier by Deke Slayton.