Watches have long been linked to space. But are we nearing its final frontier?

The watch industry has long had an association with the slightly macho worlds of automobiles and aeroplanes, with a side of polar or deep-sea exploration. But might space be its latest, perhaps final frontier? That’s the contention of Markus Walchli, brand director of Formex, which, to mark its 25th anniversary, has launched a new limited edition of its Essence chronometer with a dial made from a 4.5 billion-year-old fragment of the Muonionalusta meteorite.

It’s not just the unique pattern that use of such material affords. 'For many customers it’s about having a watch with a material from so far away – from outer space – and which is so old,' reckons Walchli. For all that high-end watchmaking often embodies exquisite decorative arts alongside the impressive micro-mechanical engineering, the resulting watches are nonetheless human-made, 'whereas this is a material that gives the opportunity to wear something actually extraterrestrial on the wrist', he suggests.

Perhaps this is why Formex is not alone in joining what, Walchli jokes, 'can feel like the year of the meteorite' – which has also seen the likes of Girard-Perregaux, Czapek, Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Omega launch or relaunch watches with meteorite dials or details recently (often cut from the same two or three meteorites). And also why, to stand out, Formex has developed a proprietary process that accentuates the iron content of the meteorite material through application of an electro-plating treatment of gold, silver with a blue tint or, for its latest Space Ghost model, just silver. 'Most meteorite dials tend to end up looking just a bit grey, so we wanted to take a more experimental approach,' says Walchli.

Indeed, following the same concern for distinction, Chris Rose, of watch brand Diatom, argues that a more intimate connection with space now needs to go beyond just having a good back-story. That is, he concedes, for all that it helped establish the Omega Speedmaster – as famously worn by the late Jim Lovell to time a crucial phase of re-entry for Apollo 13 in 1970 – as arguably the definitive ‘space watch’, an association more recently parlayed into the Swatch Moonswatch series.

'Everyone knows that being in space is bloody hard and bloody expensive – it’s still a genuinely incredible feat. But that means an association with space stands above others. It’s why, in part, people still get excited by space,' says Rose. 'But I’m not sure a symbolic association is enough anymore. Customers are looking for a physical, tangible link to space.'

That’s why Diatom is aiming to take one small step – or a giant leap – onwards. Thanks to the company being the spin-off of a specialist engineering business called Sent Into Space, which promotes brands in the space environment, Diatom already takes every watch it makes into space – customers are able to link to footage of their individual watch making this flight. But for its forthcoming Inner Worlds range, launching in spring 2026, it will embed in the dial or hands of each automatic watch various certified space-related materials, including moon rock, Mars rock, part of the Atlas rocket used on Nasa’s Mercury missions, and part of the Apollo 13 capsule.

While such materials are rare and expensive, Sent Into Space’s connections have allowed it to gather enough from private collections to create, if not create entire dials (the material is often too frail for this anyway), then at least visible details. ‘These materials make for some great storytelling without just being a story. You can see them,' adds Rose.

As the second Space Race takes off – this time driven by private enterprise, from space tourism to the promise of space mining – might the watch world be entering its own space race? And might that be a step up from yet more ties to cars and planes? Andreas Bentele, head of marketing for Fortis, thinks so.

'Space is a small field within watches, which is one reason why any watch with a genuine connection stands out,' he says. Indeed, three years ago Fortis – which sponsors the Austrian Space Forum’s Mars simulation missions – became the first watch manufacturer to test one of its watches, the Stratoliner, in space, in conjunction with the Swedish Space Corporation.

'The idea was that if the watch can survive the extremes of temperature, pressure, vibration and so on that getting into and working in space entails, then it can survive pretty much anything on Earth,' Bentele adds. 'But getting that message across [and the credibility it implies] will take time, even if a lot of the products we use in daily life [cordless tools, memory foam, smoke detectors] work so robustly because they too were developed for use in space.’ Meanwhile, watchmaking’s earthbound inspirations remain so much easier to grasp. ‘The fact is that people understand diving.'