J acob & Co., Bucherer BLUE, and Sotheby’s, are reaching for the stars. The two famed watch companies, celebrated for their innovative and dazzling designs, along with Sotheby’s, the world’s premier destination for art and luxury, have joined forces in the spirit of exploration to send a special timepiece into the unmapped vastness of space before going up for a charitable auction this summer. Named the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Bucherer BLUE, the unique watch, a marvel of Swiss craftsmanship and the decorative arts, is the first tourbillon ever to leave the earth’s atmosphere, shuttled on the first private, all-commercial mission into the cosmos.
The Astronomia Tourbillon is a truly unique, groundbreaking timepiece that elevates the art of watchmaking above the Earth, above time. Combining the highest level of Swiss time piece craftsmanship and the horological decorative arts to create a watch that is a poetic visual rendering of the celestial world –with every element in constant, visible motion, all under the control of the oscillator at the heart of the three-axis tourbillon with an orbital display of the hours and minutes.
A spherical-shaped diamond with 288 facets known as the ‘Jacob-Cut’
Aventurine, a shimmering hard stone quartz brings the dial to life
The Astronomia Tourbillon's case measures 50 millimeters in diameter and 25 millimeters in height Crafted from 18K Gold, featuring open apertures for an unobstructed view of the movement within
Triple-Axis Tourbillon
A magnesium and hand-lacquered globe of the earth
Four-arm vertical movement, perfectly calculated counterweights of one another
A Piece Unique specially designed case back commemorating this timepiece’s journey on the AX-1 mission, worn by private astronaut Eytan Stibbe. Numbered 1/1
On April 8, from the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Axiom Space launched a four-person team to and from the International Space Station (ISS)The flight named AX-1, returned off the Florida coast on Monday, April 25. A crew member on this historical mission was Eytan Stibbe, an impact investor and philanthropist, leading the Israeli designed Rakia mission to space. He had the distinction of carrying along the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer BLUE.
The Rakia mission, along with the Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer BLUE, spent 17 days 1 hour and 37 minutes in space, as the space creworbited the Earth 273 times at an altitude of 250 miles at nearly 17,500 mph, traveling over 7 million miles in total.
