Russian watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin has recently come up with a new prototype of his incredible Mars Conqueror wristwatch. Unveiled on the International Day of Human Space Flight, this extraordinary timepiece honors the first space flight, performed by Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 back in 1961.
Mars Conqueror is quite a unique sight among all the other sci-fi inspired watches. This timepiece looks more like something from another planet rather than a watch that we’re actually used to. Alongside the local time, it can indicate UTC and the average solar time on Mars, plus some other interesting astronomical indications.
There’s a central sub-dial which shows local and UTC time, and a left sub-dial which shows the sols, the Martian solar days, which are only 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than an Earth day. On the right side there’s a Martian date indicator and the relative distance between Earth and Mars.
Under the case, the Mars Conqueror timepiece has an interesting triangular movement, caliber K20-1, which encompasses a complex Martian module on top of an ETA 2836-2 movement. The movement is encased in a titanium case with a design inspired from the instrument panels of the Soviet spacecrafts of the 1960’s. The ETA movement is visible through a small porthole on the back of the case.
The first watch is a Mk I prototype, and more improvements will come with the future production watches. Konstantin Chaykin’s Mars Conqueror Mk II is expected to be released in the fall of this year in a very limited edition.
