Sharing my space-flown Speedmaster

Damn thats bonkers!

Thanks all for the kind words. Nice to know the Speedmaster still has fans! I've got friends who get glassy-eyed when I try to tell them about my watch, after which they say something like, "well, if it makes you happy, good for you." This is why we need to support each other 😁

My friend talked with cosmonaut Fedyaev yesterday. Andrey has 4 boys and a young daughter, who was born a little before he went into space. Andrey says he's exhausted. Seems that 5 kids are more work than being in space for 8 months. 🤣

I wrote a background on the launch, as it was a little hectic. It's probably too long for many, so in short, Andrey was supposed to fly on Crew 13 but got bumped up to Crew 12. Then Crew 12 launch date got moved around due to conflicts with Artemis II.


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Here's the longer version:

At 44 years old, Andrey Fedyav was already a veteran of space, having flown 168 days on the ISS. His Crew 13 mission scheduled for next year would add another eight months to his time in space. While eagerly anticipating his next mission, Andrey had plenty to do before Crew 13 launched. The father of four boys had recently celebrated the addition of a new baby girl and was in the process of building a new house for his large, happy family. A busy man, he was about to become busier.

On December 02, 2025, the Russian Space agency Roscosmos announced that they had pulled the cosmonaut from Crew 12, who were scheduled to launch in a few short months on February 15, 2026. Crew 12 now needed another Russian cosmonaut. Made up of connected sections built by different countries, the ISS is more than just a symbol of international cooperation. To stay aloft, the space station requires continuous occupation by trained workers from the countries who built each section. Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev would have to move from Crew 13 to Crew 12. Andrey’s house and family, including his new-born daughter, would need to manage without him almost a year sooner than planned. Andrey had about two months to train for a new mission, but even that quickly approaching launch date would be shortened.

Meanwhile, as Crew 12 trained 16 hours a day on Earth, Crew 11 was orbiting the Earth on the ISS preparing for a spacewalk.

Approximately 290 people had flown on the ISS over 25 years, without an emergency requiring evacuation. There had been dangerous air losses (and a fire on the previous Mir space station), but these had been managed. But for the first time in 25 years, a spacewalk scheduled for January 08 was postponed due to a medical event. While the unnamed person was stable, NASA decided it was safest to bring the whole Crew 11 home early, beginning January 14th. This would leave the ISS with only three people, two cosmonauts and one astronaut, for one month until Crew 12 arrived. Therefore, to shorten the time that the ISS would be understaffed, on January 28th, NASA announced that Crew 12 would attempt to launch four days earlier than originally scheduled, with a launch window of February 11th, 12th and 13th.

To complicate matters, the Artemis II mission to the moon was ongoing and required a great deal of NASA’s attention. For Artemis II, NASA had identified three launch windows between February 6 and April 6. Because of the complexity of the mission to the moon, NASA wanted Artemis II to complete its ten-day mission and land back on Earth to avoid any possible conflict from other launches. (The conflict centered around shared recovery assets, suit-up facilities, and the ability of the support staff at Kennedy Space Center to safely support multiple missions.)

In preparation for the Artemis II launch, NASA planned a wet rehearsal, where the rocket is loaded with cryogenic propellants while the countdown is run from the final ten minutes down to 30 seconds before launch. The wet rehearsal would take almost 48 hours and was scheduled to begin on January 31st. Both Artemis II and Crew 12 eagerly awaited the results of the wet rehearsal. If successful, Artemis II would launch on February 06, and Crew 12 launch would need to be postponed.

NASA plans for many contingencies, but one of the most difficult can be the weather. The week before the Artemis II scheduled wet rehearsal, Florida experienced some of the coldest weather it had seen in 25 years, with temperatures reaching 24F degrees. In addition to killing fish in the shallow waters surrounding Kennedy Space Center, this cold snap meant delaying the wet rehearsal to February 02. Then halfway through the test on February 02, the SLS carrying Artemis II experienced hydrogen leaks, which meant the launch would need to be delayed until the March window at the earliest. Disappointing for the Artemis II team, but Crew 12 was now a go for a 0608 AM February 11th launch.

While Artemis II and Crew 12 prepared for launch in Florida, across the country in California, SpaceX planned a Falcon 9 rocket launch for the same day as the wet rehearsal. The California launch would deploy 25 Starlink satellites using the same type of Falcon 9 rocket that would launch Crew 12 in their Dragon capsule. Although Falcon 9 had a strong record of 600 successful launches, on this February 02 launch, the second stage of the rocket experienced an issue. As a result, SpaceX and the FAA grounded all future Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX policy was to successfully launch an uncrewed Falcon 9 before attempting to launch a crewed Falcon 9 mission. Crew 12 launch date was once more on hold for reasons unrelated to their mission. Crew 12 continued to train for an uncertain launch date.

A previous grounding had required ten days to be resolved, which would have pushed out the Crew 12 launch date past the February window. Fortunately, on February 07, the FAA authorized SpaceX to resume launches using the Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX successfully launched the Starlink satellite payload, which freed Crew 12 to move forward with their scheduled February 11th launch.

Although Florida had warmed to a beautiful 70F degrees from the cold that had delayed Artemis II, the northern East Coast was still experiencing frigid weather with strong winds. Because the Crew 12 abort window would occur over the northern East Coast, this poor weather required delaying the Crew 12 launch, despite temperatures that eventually reached 80F degrees in Florida on the day before launch. The launch was rescheduled for Friday, February 13th at 0515 AM, skipping February 12th to allow the East Coast weather more time to improve.

Friday the 13th proved to be a lucky day. After months of 16-hour training days in Hawthrone California, Houston, and quarantined in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and his three astronaut crew members sat atop their Falcon 9 rocket. Waiting through the long early hours of the countdown, they finally heard “Go for Launch” at 0515AM on February 13th, 2026. Nine minutes after launch they would reach space, and sixteen minutes after launch they would be over Europe. Their Dragon would catch up to the ISS orbit 36 hours later, after which a joyous crew would dock with the ISS and join the three people on board to make up the crew of Expedition 74.

Crew 12 spent the next 237 days in space, traveling approximately 100 million miles as they circled the Earth 3,792 times. Before they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on October 08, 2026, they completed several milestones. Crew Commander Jessica Meir completed four spacewalks, raising her career total to seven, placing her third in most spacewalks for a woman astronaut. ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot became the first French woman to complete a spacewalk, eventually completing three during the mission. Adenot also set a record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a European astronaut. Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev became the first Russian cosmonaut to fly twice on a Crew Dragon. He controlled the European robotic arm, which transported his fellow cosmonauts during space walks between modules, eliminating the strenuous effort to move manually using handrails. Cosmonaut Fedyaev gained expertise from his previous experience operating the arm on his prior Crew 6 mission. Astronaut Jack Hathaway served as pilot during the mission. During the eight-month mission, in addition to the space walks and ISS maintenance, the Crew primarily conducted scientific experiments related to the following: cardiovascular and circulation changes, gravitational transition disorientation, body temperature regulation, CIPHER Human research, Pneumonia and Heart Damage, Therapies for Blood Diseases and Cancer, In-Space Stem Cell production, On-demand IV fluid generation, Cryogenic propellant control, Pharmaceutical manufacturing, Advanced Metallurgy, Automated Plant Health monitoring, Plant-Microbe interactions. Their vast array of experiments will advance deep-space exploration through knowledge gained about the human and biological impacts.