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The Breitling Cosmonaute was born in 1961 to become one of the two most famous 24 hour watches and after more than 40 years it's as alive as ever!
The first Cosmonaute was simply named Navitmer after it's 12-hour predecessor.
After Scott Carpenter became the first American to wear a wristwatch aboard a spacecraft, it was named Cosmonaute (French for cosmonaut) to commemorate this occasion.
Much has happened since. We see a number of dial and bezel variation and movement changes over the years.
In 1968 Breitling presents a totally new design for the Cosmonaute. First with the Venus 178 movement but a year later with the new Breitling automatic Chrono-matic movement.
In 1979 Breitling was struggling with a number of problems, the quartz wave from Japan but there also was no new generation to follow Willy Breitling in his footsteps and the company was sold.
A turbulent time for the Cosmonaute. We even see Cosmolike watches appear because copyrights, old Breitling parts and new old stock were sold to different persons.
We see the Sinn 809 watches but also the Aviation watch line by Ollech&Wajs and last but not least the new old stock that ended up at oldworldjewelers.com.
In the 1982 Breitling Montres S.A. settles down in Grenchen under guidance of Ernst Schneider, new owner of the company name & trademarks. In 1986 we see a comeback of the Navitimer soon to be followed by the first Cosmonaute with the Lémania movement. When in 2001 the Lémania was no longer available for non Swatch group companies it changed to the
ETA 2892-A2 with a Dubois Depraz chronograph module. The Cosmonaute Flyback was born.
These pages highlight the model history of the Cosmonaute. For a more comprehensive history check: Breitling Cosmonaute, The history and development of a legend by Alan Trott aka Altro