The G-Shock DW-5600 is another of the few watches that NASA has qualified for spaceflight. Housed in an extremely durable machined steel case, its inner workings use floating module technology kept in place by internal shock buffers, all safely stored behind thick mineral glass. Beyond being durable, this watch is multifunctional. It can manage and display multiple times (like local time in Houston and mission elapsed time), work as a stopwatch, manage countdowns, and boasts a battery life of more than ten years. It’s also water resistant, which might not seem necessary in space but does promise to improve its active lifetime on an astronaut’s wrist both in space and on Earth; the DW in the name stands for “Digital Water resistant.” For all its impressive features, this watch’s easy-to-read digital face tmade it a favorite among astronauts, specifically Shuttle astronauts. Many found it useful when timing precision mission events or running tightly time controlled experiments.
