Until 1969, the USSR space program had always been one step ahead of NASA. The first satellite in space, the first man in space, the first EVA walk... And then came 1969, and NASA put the first man on the Moon.
Having lost the race to the Moon, the Soviets shifted their focus to Mars. Their Mars program had existed since 1960 but had seen no success — until December 2nd, 1971.
On May 28th 1971 a Soviet robotic space probe called "Mars 3" was launched to Mars. Its primary purpose was to study the topography of the Martian surface, analyze its soil composition, take pictures of the Martian landscape and measure the various properties of the atmosphere.
Unfortunately at the time when Mars 3 reached the orbit of Mars, planetary scientists were surprised to find the atmosphere was thick with 'a planet-wide robe of dust, the largest storm ever observed'. The surface of Mars was totally obscured. Unable to reprogram the mission computers, Mars 3 immediately dispatched its descent module. It was released at 09:14 UT on December 2nd, 1971. Despite the extremely rough meteorological conditions the lander achieved a soft landing 4 hours and 35 minutes after being released. It started transmitting to the Mars 3 orbiter 90 seconds after landing. However, transmission stopped after only 14 seconds. The cause of the the failure lies in extremely powerful Martian dust storm, which may have induced a coronal discharge, damaging the communications system.
During the 14 sec transmission, the lander managed to send an image of Mars landscape - a grey background with no details. The large dust storm explains the poor image. This was the first picture ever taken of Mars from Mars!
Soviet authorities put the picture away for more than 10 years believing it has no scientific value. It was shown to the public only in the 80's.
The Lander was lost until 2013 when NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the picture of the Mars 3 Lander hardware - the parachute, retrorockets, heat shield and lander. The discovery what is on the pictures was done by a Russian amateur space enthusiasts looking through publicly available archived image!
The story was almost forgotten. But 50 years later, a very unusual coalition was formed between The Limited Edition company, Scottish Watches, and the Raketa Watch Company, with the goal of creating a very special watch to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this first step toward the exploration of Mars.
The result of that collaboration was the Raketa Mars 3 watch, limited to just — how convenient — 50 pieces.
Raketa Mars 3 watch is in general based on Raketa Space Launcher. The key differences lie in the dial, the glass, the bezel, and the movement decorations. All of these elements were used as a tribute to Mars 3.
Let’s start with the most noticeable feature — the dial. The team had the brilliant idea to use the first photo from Mars (already mentioned earlier) as the basis for the dial. But they went even further: the dial is an exact reproduction of that photo. As you can see in the picture on the right, it is a laser-engraved reproduction on a bronze plate, partially cut to form a circular dial. The dial was then given a rusty/copper tone through a hand-operated etching process.
The next important decision was an unusual one. The dial was left completely clean — without any hour markers, inscriptions, or text. Nothing. Instead of placing those elements on the dial, the team chose to use the glass. Everything you see on the watch face is printed on the sapphire crystal above the dial, not on the dial itself. This technique had already been used on the Space Launcher model, but in that case, it was just a single line of text. Here, everything is on the glass, which makes the risk of damaging it even more significant.
The final result is stunning. The dial is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen — its color shifts depending on the angle you view it from.
The next feature worth mentioning is the bezel. It indicates Martian time :) Martian time is called a sol, which is also written on the bezel. A Martian hour is 1 minute and 30 seconds longer than an hour on Earth, which adds up to approximately 40 extra minutes in a full day. The bezel incorporates this difference — the 24-hour scale ends between 0 and 1 on the next lap.
Useful? Not at all :) Interesting? Very!
To be honest, I almost never use bezel functions. The only truly useful one for me is using it to track a different time zone. So even if the bezel featured another function (like a compass or tachymeter), it would be just as impractical in everyday use as this one. But since Martian and Earth time are so close, you can actually use this bezel to track an alternate time zone here on Earth as well.
The bezel is bidirectional and rotates freely without any clicks. For serious use, that’s not ideal, as the bezel can be moved accidentally.
The last part of the watch dedicated to Mars 3 is the movement decoration. As you can see, the rotor features an image of the lander and the inscription Mars-3 along with the date of the landing. The bridges are decorated with an image of the constellation.
On the outer ring, all project partners are listed, along with the serial number and a statement that the watch was made in Russia. I have to admit — seeing Scottish Watches and Made in Russia written on the same watch is quite unusual. If you don’t know the story behind it, those two things together raise a lot of questions.
As mentioned earlier, the rest of the watch is the same as on the Space Launcher. And if you remember, the Space Launcher came with very distinctive straps. This watch also comes with two straps — one standard brown leather strap and one black rubber strap with red stitching.
Oh yes, almost forgot — Raketa has finally equipped this exclusive watch with proper hands! You can actually tell the time, which was quite a challenge with the Space Launcher or the Leopard (especially at night).
An additional fun detail: the minute hand moves under the printed numbers on the glass — a very unusual and interesting visual effect.
The packaging is, once again, excellent. This time, the box is black with red-brown text. Inside, there’s a nice and informative booklet that provides all the key details about the Mars 3 project. The entire historical introduction of this article — the part written in italics — is essentially a transcript from that booklet (now you know why it’s in italics). The images were also taken from it.
It also seems to have become a tradition with Raketa’s special series to include a photo of one of the workers involved in assembling the watch. In this case, the featured woman is credited with placing the jewels into the movement...
Since the case is identical to that of the Space Launcher, there are no surprises when it comes to how the watch feels on the wrist.
A fun fact: even though this is a Raketa-made watch, you won’t find it in Raketa’s own shops. The exclusive seller is The Limited Edition company. When the watch was launched at the end of 2021, its price was £1,680 — almost €2,000 (excluding EU taxes).
It seems that the marketing campaign wasn’t very successful, or perhaps the price was simply too high. Alternatively, the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have made Russian watches less popular. Whatever the reason, the watch remained available even a year later. It is now being sold via Chrono24.com — and for much less: just £1,250. That’s less than the price of most regular Raketa watches.
So, if you're considering buying one of Raketa’s 24-hour watches, this one is a great candidate — while it’s still available.
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