In February 2000, TWC No. 1 spent eleven days in orbit aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, worn by ESA astronaut Gerhard Thiele. The record: the NASA certificate, the watch, the crew and the mission.
On February 11, 2000, Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on STS-99. ESA astronaut Gerhard Thiele, Mission Specialist 1, had a Towson automatic chronograph on his wrist. He wore it for eleven days in orbit. After Endeavour landed, NASA's Johnson Space Center certified the flight. The watch is TWC No. 1.
Towson Watch Company was founded in Maryland in 1998. Two years later, No. 1 was in orbit. This page is the record of that flight.
Made for the flight
The watch began with a friendship. Gerhard Thiele was Hartwig Balke's friend, and in 1998 he asked Balke and George Thomas for a chronograph to wear on the mission. Balke built it in 1999. It was his first wrist chronograph, and he was 56.
Two steel chronographs were made for the flight, their casebacks engraved with the names of the six crew. Thiele wore both in orbit. No. 1 is the one NASA certified as flown for Hartwig Balke, and the one Towson keeps. The first 25 Towson wrist chronographs followed the flight.
The flight record
- Mission: STS-99, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)
- Orbiter: Space Shuttle Endeavour
- Launch: February 11, 2000, 12:43 p.m. EST, Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center
- Landing: February 22, 2000, 6:22 p.m. EST, runway 33, Shuttle Landing Facility
- Duration: 11 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes
- Commander: Kevin R. Kregel
- Pilot: Dominic L. Gorie
- Mission specialists: Gerhard P.J. Thiele (ESA), Janet L. Kavandi, Janice E. Voss and Mamoru Mohri (NASDA)
The NASA certificate
This watch, TWC No. 1, was flown for Hartwig Balke aboard the United States Space Shuttle, ENDEAVOUR, which was launched at 12:44 p.m., February 11, 2000, from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. At 6:22 p.m., February 22, 2000, after 182 Earth orbits, ENDEAVOUR landed on runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility, Florida.
Hartwig Balke is Towson's co-founder and the watch's designer. The certificate also prints a maximum altitude of 126 miles, a maximum speed of 17,500 mph, a duration of 11 days, 5 hours and 38 minutes, and a distance of 4.7 million miles. Those figures are quoted as printed. The flight record above follows NASA's own mission summary.
The watch
No. 1 is a steel automatic chronograph with a black dial and three registers. In orbit it was a working watch, worn through the crew's shifts on the flight deck.
Today No. 1 sits in a shadow box with the STS-99 crew patch, the crew's signed portrait and the certificate.
Kept, not sold
The certificate carries a notice: "Consistent with NASA regulations found at 14 C.F.R. Subpart 1214.6, this item will not be sold, transferred for sale, used or transferred for personal gain, or used or transferred for any commercial or fundraising purpose."
We keep to it. TWC No. 1 is company heritage. It is not for sale and never will be.
