Artemis II astronauts wore top-of-the-line Omega wristwatches around the moon — and one slipped on an old-school NASA icon
By Alex Oliveira
Published on April 9, 2026.
The Artemis II astronauts have been wearing Omega X-33 Speedmasters around the moon, a top-of-the-line Omega wristwatches designed specifically for space travel. However, one of the astronauts appears to have slipped on the same mechanical Speedmaster used during Apollo missions. The watch, which dates back to the 1990s, combines highly accurate quartz-powered hands over a digital screen and can take over if the analog face freezes due to cold conditions in raw space. Each crew member was given the "standard-issue" watch. The Speedmaster Professional chronograph was certified for spaceflight by NASA in 1965 and later issued to all astronauts through Gemini and Apollo. The Omegas were selected for their accuracy in zero gravity, in the vacuum of space and during extreme temperature fluctuations. Astronauts often kept their NASA-issued watches after the missions, but most ended up giving them to the National Air and Space Museum as part of a 1967 agreement to reclaim government-issued equipment for its archives.
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