Did a Brand You’ve Never Heard of Just Make the Ultimate Space Watch?

In case you hadn’t heard, space travel is hot again. So, naturally, are space watches.

This renewed excitement is largely thanks to NASA’s Artemis program, which had a successful launch earlier this year when Artemis II sent humans farther into space than any mission before it.

A number of watches went around the moon with the Artemis II crew. The crew wore their NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster X-33s, a couple of them brought personal Omega Speedmaster Moonwatches and several of the crew donned mysterious Breitling Cosmonautes that turned out to be special Artemis II editions.

Then there was Watches and Wonders last month, where space travel was a major theme. At the show, Bremont unveiled a new Supernova that’s bound for the moon, while IWC showed off with a rethought space watch called the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive, which will be worn aboard the future Vast Haven-1 commercial space station.

IWC

Now, a new watch from an upstart, unorthodox brand may upstage them all. In fact, it could be the most purpose-built space watch ever made.

Blast off

This space watch to end all space watches is the Barrelhand Monolith, which is a strange name for an even stranger watch. Barrelhand isn’t your typical watch brand. Instead, it describes itself as a maker of “tools for the next chapter of space exploration,” and the brand has spent the past six years developing and testing the Monolith in conjunction with several brands in the aerospace, advanced manufacturing, materials engineering and watchmaking industries.

Now, the watch is here, and nearly every aspect of it has been considered for peak performance during space travel, both inside and outside a ship.

Let’s start with the unique case, or as Barrelhand calls it, the “Aircore Chassis.” It’s 3D-printed from a material called Scalmalloy, an aluminum-magnesium alloy frequently used in the modern aerospace industry. It’s as strong as titanium but weighs half as much (the case weighs a minuscule 6.5 grams) and is highly resistant to corrosion and abrasion.

Barrelhand

The 3D printing of the case allows for a vented structure that enables ten times greater thermal insulation than a solid steel case, granting the watch exceptional resistance to temperature changes. It can withstand anything from -120C to +120C.

The dial has been optimized for legibility and durability. It consists of two matte-black plates of brass sandwiching solid blocks of Aerolight X2 Ceramic lume. There is no paint or printing to flake off or fade away, and the lume is four times brighter than printed Super-LumiNova X1. It’s also, like the case, resistant to extreme temperature variations.

Even the crystal has been upgraded. Rather than a standard sapphire crystal, the watch uses C-plane sapphire. Thanks to the C-plane variety’s hexagonal structure, it’s twice as strong as regular sapphire, making this crystal not only impervious to scratches but also highly shatter-resistant.

Barrelhand

An anti-spalling structure and a Hytrel suspension L-ring mount add to the crystal’s durability, while a special magnesium-fluoride anti-reflective coating reduces glare while being more durable than traditional AR coatings.

The oversized 8mm “Airlock Crown” is designed to be operable with astronaut gloves, and it can even be operated in the vacuum of space or underwater. It protects against both atmospheric pressure underwater and the negative pressure found in the vacuum of space, and is rated to 0 to 20atm. The crown also has an anodized orange coating for visibility and added durability.

An “Engine Mount” inside the case adds further protection against temperature swings while also adding layers of protection against shocks, with the ability to withstand impacts of 3,000 Gs in all directions.

Barrelhand

The aluminum caseback is screwed on using torx screws that are compatible with existing ISS tool sets, while the gaskets used to seal the watch are made from a similar composite used on the ISS’s airlock systems.

Set within the caseback is Barrelhand’s “Memory Disc,” a unique data storage device created by the brand to survive millions of years in space. It’s resistant to degradation,  radiation, magnetic fields and intense heat. 

Measuring just 19mm across and made of solid nickel, the Memory Disc is engraved using NanoFiche technology that prints 420 smaller than the width of a human hair. The disc contains around 1,000 pages of data, including a curated selection of artworks, the UNESCO constitution preamble in 286 languages and the novella Le Petit Prince in its entirety. It’s all readable under optical magnification.

Barrelhand

Inside the watch is admittedly the least impressive aspect of the Monolith, and that’s the movement. It’s a modified Sellita SW300-1b automatic movement that Barrelhand calls the “M1 Engine.” It is a higher-end Sellita using a nickel-phosphorous escapement and boasting ISO-certified magnetic resistance, but it’s unclear what modifications Barrelhand has done here.

It’s also strange to me that the brand would choose an automatic movement. Barrelhand notes the rotor will still wind in microgravity, but as far as I know, the rotor will not work in zero gravity. That’s why space-worn mechanical watches have typically been manually wound only, like the Omega Speedmaster and IWC’s new Vertical Drive. I would think ditching the rotor would’ve saved some weight on the watch without reducing performance.

Finally, we have the strap. It’s decidedly astronaut-appropriate and is made of elastic polyester webbing that’s UV-resistant, waterproof, freeze-proof and resistant to overstretching. The strap has a Grade 5 titanium hook-and-loop closure and is designed to easily switch between over-suit and under-suit wear for EVA (extravehicular activity) and IVA (intravehicular activity), respectively, without the use of any tools.

Barrelhand

Availability and pricing

I’ve got to hand it to Barrelhand here, this is an extremely well-thought-out “tool for the next chapter of space exploration.” The brand didn’t just slap a NASA label on a watch and call it a day.

Every aspect of the watch has been engineered with space travel in mind, including the use of several materials novel to the watch industry. (I’ll give them a break on the movement; there are only so many third-party options.)

The brand even went through the trouble of ensuring that every material and manufacturing process used on the Monolith meets ISO aerospace standards and NASA material guidance, and every component of the watches has been successfully tested against NASA’s Apollo-era EVA/IVA protocols.

Today, the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch with the Hesalite crystal is the only watch certified by NASA for EVA activity. It sounds like the Monolith could be the second, should NASA decide it wants to test the watch for itself.

I’ve seen no indication that’s happening, but for what it’s worth, the Monolith has already been to space. 2024’s Intuitive Machines IM-1 robotic lunar mission allowed for the final testing of the prototype, and Turkish astronaut Gökhan Erdem wore one on the Blue Origin NS-34 spaceflight last year.

You can reserve your own Monolith on Barrelhand’s website now for $9,750. I know, that’s pretty expensive, but this level of R&D ain’t cheap.

Barrelhand

Barrelhand Monolith

• $9,750 at Barrelhand