My X-33 has always been one of my favorite watches and now I've been able to reach back a bit further into its history to find out a bit more about its earlier adventures in space.

The most recent photographic evidence we had showed the X-33 Speedmaster prototype made its debut in space during the STS-89 Space Shuttle Endeavour mission in January 1998, about 2 months prior to its official unveiling in Houston in late March of the same year....until now.

Here is a new image from STS-89 showing Michael Anderson wearing the X-33 prototype with its distinctive unique case and round pushers.





But, before the prototype above flew on STS-89 there was the original X-33 "Flightmaster" prototype. The earlier prototype had a different set of "winged" hands that was to aide in better visualization of the digital display.

Here is what the original X-33 Flightmaster prototype looks like.



Here are some nice new images showing the original X-33 Flightmaster prototype flying earlier on STS-79 in September 1996.

Here is Commander William Readdy during STS-79 setting his X-33 Flightmaster onboard the Shuttle Atlantis. As you can see the X-33 Flightmaster prototype is identified by the larger red minute hand as seen above.




Here is a second image of the X-33 Flightmaster on an unidentified strap.





Lastly, as a side note, for the fans of the 1977 LCD Speedmasters obtained by NASA for Shuttle Pilots, I'm 99.99999999999999999999999999% certain that not one of them ever flew regardless of what Omega says or might want us to believe. I came to this conclusion after doing an extensive dive into almost 50,000+ onboard images taken during Shuttle missions going into the late 1990's. There are many, many, many, many identifiable different watches flown but not one of them is an LCD Speedmaster. If you want to believe they were packed away and tested therefore unseen, please do, but I'm firmly in the camp that they never saw a day in space.

Lastly, lastly, after these missions the X-33 prototype watches were offered for sale to the astronauts for the bargain price of $800.

Here ends the lesson. TLIGuy signing out.

 

Thank you for the info. Nice watch.

 

thanks for your summary.
were you able to determine what was the other watch cm readdy was wearing?

 

Nice write up and info. How old is William Readdy? Looks like old duffers in space.

 

Yes, he is wearing a Digital Sports Seiko A829-6019 which became the standard issue watch in the mid-80's and is the watch I observed the most. It is simply everywhere.

Also, from this side it appears that the X-33 Flightmaster is secured by a simple plastic strap.

 

I have absolutely no skin in the LCD-Speedy game at all, but due to the nature of the photographic documentation of these missions, not finding a hint of a watch in the photo archives definitely can not be dismissed...(stating the obvious, but, *BOOOOOM*)...

An unbeatable contribution as usual Glad the X33 is not this watch

 

Nice research, thanks for sharing

 

For what it’s worth in a post in “open discussion” I asked if anybody could identify the watch worn by Emirati Astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri when he went to space last week. The opinion was that the watch is the x-33.

 

He wears a X33 Skywalker, it can be seen better on some videos of him weighing his body mass, there is some pics here too
https://twitter.com/MBRSpaceCentre/status/1178272277881851905

 

Just think though if you are lucky you too one day will be an old duffer...

 

Another one with the X-33 Skywalker

 

Update - Prototype Flightmaster flying as early as March 1996 on STS-75.

 

Indeed, worn by Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier... STS-75 Columbia was his third spaceflight mission... Nicollier would still fly on STS-103, so he flew on each of the 4 remaining space shuttle orbiters !

 

Great info and summary, I love all the astronaut photos too.

 

@TLIGuy 's discovery is great as so far we only had these details on the Speedmaster X-33 :
1996 - NASA received X-33 prototypes... flown the same year...
1997 - October NASA received 23 Speedmaster X-33...
1998 - March 25 Speedmaster X-33 presented onboard Mir space station by cosmonauts Nikolai Budarin and Talgat Musabayev...
1998 - August 27 NASA received 27 X-33...
So finding actual NASA images to document such a fact, seeing who actually wore it is superb... by a Swiss astronaut !
.

February 1996, Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier wearing a prototype X-33

1996-2021 = 25 years X-33 in spaceflight

 

...and his other watch is a Swatch!!!

 

When did the first Swatch fly in space ?
Created in 1983, the earliest Swatch we might have seen on a spaceflight mission has been worn by Dutch ESA astronaut Wubbo Johannes Ockels during SpaceLab D-1 onboard space shuttle "Challenger" STS-61A in October 1985....