Back in March of this year I was notified that a brand new watch company planning to offer a unique watch via a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign. That "unique" feature is that watch dial was to be made from metal retrieved from a flown used Russian Soyuz Rocket "Strap On" Boosters that were used to launch manned missions to the International Space Station.
These booster rockets make up part of the 1st stage of the Soyuz rocket and provide the thrust needed to launch the rocket off the pad and propel the entire rocket and spacecraft through the lower reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. They eventually are jettisoned after approximately two minutes at an altitude of 30 miles. These boosters follow a ballistic path back to Earth and landed about 100 miles east of Baikonur in the Kazakhstan Steppes. The Werenbach team of Marco and Patrick traveled with permission to Kazakhstan to retrieve one of the boosters that had fallen in a restricted area. It is from these discarded boosters that all the materials for the watches were retrieved.
Once the material was back in Switzerland and at the workshop of the company, then the watchmakers started to process the metal from the booster into watch dials for a series of watches for the Kickstarter investors. The series consists of color dials that represent different sections of the booster. An example, the orange dial represents the lower part of the booster that was coated in orange paint.
While I have several watches and time instruments that have flown in Space, I thought that a watch made from a flown rocket would be an interesting addition to the collection. I decided to invest in Werenbach's Kickstarter campaign. I was not disappointed. My Model 5 watch arrived last week.
The orange dial is distinctive in its appearance. The moveable bezel that allows you to track the rocket from launch to spacecraft orbit is different from the usual tachymeter or timer bezels that most complication watches offer. Werenbach also added a crystal to the watchback that shows the SPF automatic movement. They also engraved the Soyuz mission data on the rim of the caseback.
The watch has little details placed on the watch case as well as the custom watch strap. On the side opposite of the crown, they engraved part of Frank Drake's Pulsar map and they continue the map on the inside of the strap. It is worth grabbing a magnifying loop for a look around the watch for those hidden details.
As a bonus for joining the campaign early was the inclusion the metal piece that the dial from during the making of the watch. The orange color is the lower part of the booster and when compared with a metal replica of the Soyuz that was purchased at Star City, Russia matches as shown with the watch, the metal watch blank and a flattened Russian Ruble for a launch at Baikinor.
I have enjoyed wearing the watch. It is comfortable on the wrist and makes for a good conversation piece.
My thanks to Werenbach for use of their photographs of the watch and of their journey to the Steppes of Kazakhstan.
I love this article. I did the same. ang got my watch some few days ago. But still in the box, as I will open it for christmas. Thanks for sharing this post with us.
Posted by: space collectibles | 12/20/2017 at 04:23 PM