Collective Horology, the California-based, membership-driven watch community, could hardly have chosen a better day to announce its newest bespoke timepiece, in collaboration with the iconoclastic indie watchmaker Urwerk and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. This morning’s successful launch of Blue Origin, the civilian-crewed rocket pioneered by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, provided the perfect lead-in to the unveiling of the Urwerk UR-100V P.02, whose unusual dial display is designed to track typical launch and landing sequences for the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
Intended as “a tribute to the experience of flying the space shuttle,” the watch is based on an existing Urwerk model, the UR-100V, which tracks the Earth’s orbital and rotational distance on dual 20-minute scales in apertures on the upper left and upper right. On the new model, which displays the hours on orbiting satellites in classic Urwerk fashion and the minutes on red arrow-tipped pointers along a 60-minute scale, the concept of those side-mounted scales is different. The left aperture features three distinctly colored sectors tracking the phases of the shuttle’s launch: green for the final checks on the ground before takeoff, blue for the ignition of the boosters, and red for reaching orbital altitude. On the right is the “landing” aperture scale, with four colored zones: black for the 60-minute landing countdown, red for re-entry into the upper atmosphere, blue for final descent under the control of the shuttle commander, and green for the landing gear touching down on the runway.
The UR-100V P.02 has a titanium and stainless steel case, with a gunmetal gray finish, constructed in Urwerk’s unconventional hard-edged shape and measuring 41 mm by 49.7 mm in diameter and 14 mm thick. Under its domed sapphire crystal, the case houses the Urwerk Caliber UR 12.02, which drives the “wandering hours” display on the trio of the beryllium-bronze satellites in the shape of Geneva crosses and uses a special, profiled airscrew known as a Windfänger to govern its self-winding rotor and protect it against excessive speeds. The carousel on which the satellites rest is made of anodized aluminum, sanded and shot-blasted, with its triple baseplates in an ARCAP alloy.
The watch — the second in Collective Horology’s Portfolio series, which showcases independent, high-end watchmaking — comes with a custom-made manual that describes the take-off and landing operations in detail, allowing the owner a rare insight into how an astronaut would experience the process aboard the Enterprise, which is now among the highlights exhibited at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. The watch is strictly limited to 20 pieces, offered exclusively to new and existing Collective Horology members (you can join here), and priced at $62,500, with $50,000 of proceeds from the total sales donated to the Intrepid Museum.
