Why Yes, The Cal. 1040 and 1041 Speedmasters Have Space Connections Too

Every watch collector is aware of Omega’s deep connection NASA astronauts and space exploration. The manual-wind Speedmaster Professionals (calibres 321, 861, and 1861) and the later quartz X-33s are the ones with obvious space pedigrees, but even the 1040 family got in the space game back in the 70s.

 

Before I dig into this topic, let me first say that I am not one of those guys that followed my interest of astronauts and space-related “stuff” until it led me to Speedmasters, which created an obsession for watches. In my case, it was the other way around: first watches in general, then Omega and Speedmasters, and finally the space angle. Second, these particular watches are related to the Soviet space program of the 1970s, a topic for which the information is not exactly abundant on the English-speaking internet of 2017. So I apologize if this article doesn’t delve as deeply as a true space researcher might want or expect.

Let’s start with the world’s first self-winding chronometer-certified chronograph, the Speedmaster 125, since its space connection is much more well known. Cosmonaut Vladimir Djanibekov actually wore his Speedmaster 125 in space in January 1978 during the Salyut 6 mission wore his Speedmaster 125 during training for Soyuz 27, which was his first mission to the Salyut 6 space station. In 1982, wore his Speedmaster 125 on Soyuz T-6 to the Salyut 7 space station. [EDIT: h/t to reader MoonWatchUniverse for pointing out my error and clarifying! I did say this wasn’t my area of expertise didn’t I? Seriously, thanks for clearing that up!] This watch is in the possession of and on display at the Omega Museum, and was featured in AJTT. So although it isn’t the most commonly known Omega with space cred, or even close, it isn’t exactly a secret, either.

 

What I never knew until very recently, was the fact that the cal. 1040 Speedmaster Mark III also has a connection to the Soviet space program. Instagram user famouswristshots posted the following photo in October, showing Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko sporting what can only be a Mark III (according to the author of famouswristshots, this has been confirmed by both the Omega Museum and the authors of Moonwatch Only). Upon a close inspection you can see that the watch has a white 6:00 subdial, meaning the dial is a blue dial, either E1 or E2.

 

Side note: seriously go follow famouswristshots on IG right now – I learn something from literally every single post!

Back to the Mark III on Gorbatko’s wrist. That is a publicity photo taken around 1977. I did a cursory Google image search and found that he was often photographed with a watch on, but he seems to be wearing a different watch in each photo. And I didn’t see any other shots featuring the Mark III. So unlike the 125, which we know made it to the Soyuz space station, we don’t know if Gorbatko actually wore the Mark III in flight. Still, that is an interesting link to the space aura of the Speedmaster family.

 

Cosmonauts in general seemed to be fans of the thick, pilot-cased Omega chronographs of the era. Yury Artyukhin and Alexei Leonov are known to have flown missions wearing their cal. 911 flightmasters. [EDIT: Leonov only wore his during training…thanks again to reader MoonWatchUniverse and a sincere apology for the mistake!] There maybe more cosmonaut connections to non-Moonwatches of the era, but again I’m not a spacehead. My (narrow, I admit) focus is on the 1040 family so I’m here to point out that not every Omega in a James Bond film is a Seamaster 300 diver, and that not every space-related Omega is known as the Moonwatch.