Originally, the Omega speedmaster was the first chronograph in the world to incorporate a tachymeter scale on the bezel, which made it possible to calculate speed during automobile races by combining it with its chronometers (hence the name Speedmaster).

But it was not then that this model reached its well-deserved fame; it would still take several years and crossing the Earth’s atmosphere on two occasions for the whole world to set its eyes on this model, decorated by NASA with the “Silver Snoopy Award” insignia.

And how did this happen? In 1970, one year after the Apollo XI moon landing, Apollo XIII takes off, determined to repeat the feat of its predecessor, but as we all know, the mission could not be completed due to a failure in one of the oxygen tanks. And this is when our protagonist Omega Speedmster comes into play, thanks to whom the crew members saved their lives.

To save energy and oxygen, the crew disabled almost everything: their digital timers were out of service and the astronauts found themselves at the mercy of darkness and in freezing conditions.

Because the mission had deviated 60 to 80 miles off course, the module would enter the Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle and bounce off into space, with no chance of recovery.

Therefore, to manually straighten the drift of the ship, it was required to start the engines to effect an exact 14 seconds of fuel consumption.

Without his digital stopwatches, Swigert used his Speedmaster to time the burn, while Lovell steered the ship by guiding it around the Earth’s horizon. He timed the engine ignition to make that correction so he could get home safely.” (If you want to know more about the history of this model, click here).

In commemoration of this feat in 2017 OMEGA launched this special edition SPEEDMASTER APOLLO XVII limited to 1972 pieces, with many specific details in gold, tachymeter and dial in blue ceramic.