Apollo 13 and the Speedmaster that timed the way home

Most movie watches are chosen for the screen. The Apollo 13 watch was chosen by NASA. Long before Tom Hanks wore it in Ron Howard’s 1995 film, the Omega Speedmaster Professional had already played a real part in one of the most dramatic rescues in the history of space flight.

This is the story of that watch: what happened on board Apollo 13, why fourteen seconds mattered so much, and how the film turned the Speedmaster into a piece of cinema history too.

The real mission: April 1970

Apollo 13 launched on 11 April 1970 with Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise on board, headed for the Moon. On 13 April, an oxygen tank in the service module exploded. The landing was cancelled, and the mission became a single goal: bring three men home alive.

With power running out, the crew moved into the lunar module and shut down most of the command module’s systems, including the onboard computer. That created a problem nobody had planned for: the spacecraft still needed precise engine burns to stay on the right path back to Earth, and the systems that normally timed them were off.

Fourteen seconds on a wristwatch

This is where the Speedmaster comes in. According to the Science Museum Group, command module pilot Jack Swigert used his Speedmaster to time the manual engine burn, after calibrating it with Mission Control. Lovell later recalled that the crew “used the watch that Jack Swigert wore”.

The burn lasted 14 seconds. Too short, or too long, and the spacecraft would have missed the narrow corridor it needed to re-enter the atmosphere safely. It worked. On 17 April 1970 the crew splashed down in the Pacific.

Why NASA trusted the Speedmaster

The Speedmaster was not on board by chance. It had been flying since 1962, when Wally Schirra wore one on the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, and in 1965 NASA qualified it as the chronograph for its crewed missions after testing several models. In 1969, Buzz Aldrin wore one on the lunar surface, making it the first watch worn on the Moon.

Its strengths are exactly the ones that mattered on Apollo 13: a manual-wind movement that does not depend on any power source, a chronograph that is easy to read and operate, and a case built to survive extreme temperatures and shocks.

The Silver Snoopy Award

On 5 October 1970, NASA thanked Omega with the Silver Snoopy Award, its honour for contributions to flight safety. The pin was presented by astronaut Thomas Stafford, according to collectSPACE. Omega has celebrated the award many times since, with Speedmaster editions featuring Snoopy on the dial.

The 1995 film

Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995) tells the mission almost hour by hour, with Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert and Bill Paxton as Fred Haise. Accuracy was a priority for the production, and the watches follow the history: Hanks wears an Omega Speedmaster Professional on a steel bracelet in many scenes, from Lovell’s home in Houston to the days before the launch.

That makes Apollo 13 different from most of the films we cover. The Speedmaster is not a costume choice or a product placement: it is the same watch, doing on screen what it really did in space.

Why this watch matters

The Speedmaster is often called the “Moonwatch” because of Apollo 11. But Apollo 13 is the mission that shows why a mechanical watch belonged on board at all: when the computers went dark, a hand-wound chronograph on an astronaut’s wrist still worked.

That is also why the Speedmaster has barely changed since the 1960s. Omega still makes the Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch, and the Apollo 13 story is a big part of its appeal.

For another watch with a real story behind the film, read about Steve McQueen’s Heuer Monaco in Le Mans, or browse all our On Screen articles.