Lot 83

Omega

Speedmaster Professional

An important digital split wrist chronograph - PROTOTYPE - with rattrapante and precision quartz movement, made for the "Alaska IV Project" - with original box and Omega extract from the archives, dated February 23, 2021

This professional digital model of reference ST186.004 was specially developed in the late 1970s for the Alaska project (the code name for a series of secret, NASA-related prototyping), to be tested exclusively by NASA astronauts and space shuttle pilots. A total of 20 prototypes were produced and 12 examples were sent to NASA astronauts in 1979.
These prototypes differ from the serial versions in several ways: their cases are thicker, the LCD display is illuminated by two flat tritium stripes instead of the usual small lightbulb (which were considered as a risk factor in space), the word "Light" is missing from the dial and the prototype calibre number "1621" is engraved on the case back. This timepiece does not have a hand-engraved, two digit number on the back of the case, which indicates that it is one of the models that was not delivered to Houston but tested by Omega themselves.