What kind of watch is the Breitling Cosmonaut?

The most distinctive feature of the Cosmonaut is that the dial displays the time in 24-hour format.

The dial does not have odd numbers, but numbers that are multiples of two.

While the hands normally rotate once every 12 hours, on this watch they make one full rotation in 24 hours, making it a very rare model among watches.



But what does this all mean?


The Cosmonauts were born in 1962.

This was during the height of NASA's Project Mercury.

The special version of the Navitimer, the Cosmonaut, was designed for this era as a watch that could clearly distinguish between day and night even in outer space, where it is difficult to distinguish between day and night.

In short, a Cosmonaut is a watch that can be used in space.

This is a famous model that was quickly seen on the wrist of Scott Carpenter, captain of the Aurora Seven, when it was released in May.

In addition to displaying the time of day, the Cosmonaut is equipped with a Type 52 slide rule that allows for quick aviation calculations and various other calculations, and is the only hand-wound model among Breiling's current chronographs.

Who is Scott Carpenter?
On May 24, 1962, a man took off from Kennedy Space Center aboard Aurora Seven, a spacecraft barely large enough for one man.
This is Scott Carpenter, one of the greatest astronauts in history.
The watch he chose to carry with him on that occasion was a Breitling Cosmonaut.
Using this watch, he successfully completed the flight in 4 hours, 56 minutes and 5 seconds.
The Cosmonaut's true value was recognized as a watch that could keep accurate time even in the gravity-free environment of space.
To commemorate his achievement, Breitling released the Cosmonaut "Scott Carpenter Memorial Model" in 1994.