Hands-On: IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition ‘Polaris Dawn’ – Four Unique Watches That Are Headed To Space
Last year, as I stood under the hot Wisconsin sun on the side of an active taxiway at EAA AirVenture 2023, I kept my eyes peeled on the horizon for an unmistakable sight. If I hadn’t seen it first, I certainly would have heard it: likely the only American-owned MiG-29, piloted by American entrepreneur, pilot, and billionaire Jared “Rook” Isaacman. It’s hard to miss.
A MiG-29 in the air is something you’d never hope to see over the United States – except in this one special case.
Piloting the MiG-29 not only makes Isaacman a certified bad-ass for a lot of aviation enthusiasts, he’s also the commander of the Polaris Dawn mission – the first private spaceflight in a series of missions named the Polaris Program – that took off on August 26 after a long delay. But when he landed, I wasn’t just looking at the sick camouflage paint job on his MiG and the rest of the Polaris squadrons’ L-39 jets; I was there to see the watches on their wrists: four customized and space-themed IWC Ceramic Chronographs.
One more time for the MiG-29. Even with the drogue chute deployed it still looks scary as all hell as it taxis in.
You might have seen my photo report from EAA last year. It was a fantastic time and I walked well over 12 miles over two days in search of cool planes and watches. But first and foremost I was there for a different story that I couldn’t publish until the Polaris Dawn team officially got up to space. Not only did I get to see the IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition “Polaris Dawn” but I got to talk to “Rook,” and members of the rest of the team including SpaceX Lead Space Operations Engineers Sarah “Cooper” Gillis and Anna “Walker” Menon. You rarely (if ever) get to speak with soon-to-be astronauts or see watches that have or will go to space, so how could I not?
Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna “Walker” Menon, Mission Commander Jared “Rook” Isaacman, and SpaceX Lead Space Operations Engineer Sarah “Cooper” Gillis.
There’s a totally understandable obsession with space watches. Space travel is utterly mind-boggling for most people, but wearing a watch that connects to space flight brings the achievement of leaving this planet a little closer to home. We’ve covered space-flown watches every chance we can at Hodinkee, but the Polaris Dawn program (and the watches) are unlike any mission to space before it.
The Polaris Dawn crew was slated to take off this week aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for what’s planned to be up to a five-day mission, though unfavorable weather conditions have delayed the launch. The mission will fly higher than any previous Dragon mission, flying through the Van Allen radiation belt. As for the rest of the mission, I’ll let Isaacson break it down in a minute.
You can see the outline of “Rook” in the dial of the IWC Pilot’s Chronograph.
If I was going to space, I’d want to keep the watch that I was wearing. Even more personal, each watch is numbered and engraved with each astronaut’s name and call sign. Unfortunately, the astronauts won’t be able to hold on to these as souvenirs – Sarah Gillis told me that the memories were enough. All four watches were donated to the Polaris Dawn program by IWC, and in turn, the watches will be auctioned off as a box set at Christie’s New York this fall, with all proceeds benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The IWC watch for Inspiration4.
This isn’t the first time the astronauts have worked together – nor is it the first time IWC has worked with a SpaceX mission. The brand made – and later auctioned off – a very similar space-flown watch for Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit. You can see that watch above. After meeting during that mission in different roles, all the current team eventually reunited with new mission.
“That mission [Inspiration4] was just to show that it could be done, that you could be happy, healthy, productive in space and do it for more than just going up and beginning this voyage and this new frontier, but also to show you can make life better here on Earth,” said Isaacson. “That’s why St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was a huge part of Inspiration4. It raised over a quarter of a billion dollars. It was also a great partnership with IWC in that their watches were also donated that we flew in space to inspiration four.”
“After that mission, we basically kind of looked at the future that SpaceX is going towards, which is their vision is to make life multi-planetary and that the world is a more interesting place when people can journey among the stars and they’re building a whole new launch vehicle Starship to do it.”
“Polaris Dawn will be the farthest from Earth that any humans have gone since the last time we walked on the Moon on Apollo 17. Cooper and Walker here will be the women explorers who will venture farthest from the Earth in history. We’ll learn an awful lot from that high altitude, that high radiation environment. We’ll do a spacewalk – we’ll vent the whole cabin down to vacuum. We’ll test out the first new spacesuits that have been built in 40 years. Not like multi-hundred-million-dollar spacesuits, but suits that someday could be mass produced when you have hundreds or thousands of people on Moon or Mar someday. So we’ll test out the suits and the operations and then we’ll test a brand new constellation of communication satellites, Starlink. We’ll do laser to laser communication between two objects going 17,500 miles an hour.”
Stan Rambaud, Brand President North America at IWC Schaffhausen, checking out the cockpit of an L-39. I’m pretty sure John “Slick” Baum (left) is showing him where the ignition is.
As for the watches, Isaacson and the team were more than just appreciative of the partnership but really in love with the history of IWC. “Polaris Dawn is about leaning forward, pushing the boundaries for the exciting future we all want to live in tomorrow, and also trying to make good progress on the issues we have here back on Earth,” he said. “IWC seemed totally aligned with us in that regard. The brand was already was already forward-leaning in aviation. I think they were wanting to push the boundaries. So generously donated watches that we could fly on Inspiration4 with the aim of taking these unique time pieces and auctioning them em off for St. Jude, which was super successful and raised nearly half a million dollars for a pretty important cause.”
So let’s get to the watch again. You’ll notice I couldn’t eliminate the reflection in the 44.5mm dial. First, the watch had to return to “Rook” as he met with fans and went around EAA speaking with attendees about the Polars Dawn mission, so I had to work quickly. But also, apparently, it’s tough to get perfect light mid-day on the taxiway of one of the busiest airports in the world. Hopefully, I did the watch some semblance of justice.
There are four of these Polaris Dawn watches, differentiated by their unique caseback engravings for each astronaut. They largely resemble the “Lake Tahoe” chronograph in most respects. The white ceramic case is 44.5mm 15.7 mm with 60 meters of water resistance, housing a Caliber 69380 automatic movement. The kind of dial layout of these chronographs, with the vertical counter layout (a 30-minute counter at 12 o’clock, running seconds at six o’clock, and 12-hour counter at nine o’clock) goes back a long way for IWC – back to the Valjoux 7750 gear train that inspired these. You also get the day and date, which might seem a bit anachronistic now but are hard to deny, but it is a classic all the same. IWC has consistently been able to refresh what’s under the hood and the whole look by playing with the colors and case materials. The Polaris Dawn watch takes this a step further.
In addition to the caseback, which you saw above, the watches all feature dark blue lacquered dials printed with countless stars and the mission logo of Polaris Dawn. While I never would have considered a watch with printed stars on it but if there’s one watch where I think it would work. The logo reminds me of other unit watches we’ve seen in the past and something IWC has done before publicly and privately (like with the Black Aces watch from 2023). I don’t recall another IWC with an astronaut on the dial, however, and this one is extra special.
As Isaacson said, as a part of the Polaris Dawn mission, the team is taking part in the first-ever commercial astronaut spacewalk using the new SpaceX Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suit. The design on the dial is most likely based on the Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit that the EVA is developed on (that’s a guess because I saw this watch last year, and the EVA suit was only unveiled earlier this year).
I’ve been watching the Polaris Dawn mission closely, waiting for a safe launch, because of my experience putting this story together and meeting the team. Frankly, I find the idea of spacewalks (let alone blasting into space on the back of a giant rocket) terrifying. Luckily, it’s not a fear I’ll ever have to tackle. Still, I’ve never felt so concerned about the people undertaking a space mission. There’s a lot they’re set to accomplish. I’ll continue following the whole thing, and when the astronauts and the watches are back safely, I’ll watch the Christie’s auction – the final part of their mission – to see how much money they raise.
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