Few Speedmaster references arrive with a backstory this specific. The 310.32.42.50.02.001 exists to mark 50 years since NASA handed Omega something rarer than a sales record. A small silver pin, worn first by an astronaut and later by the person...
Few Speedmaster references arrive with a backstory this specific. The 310.32.42.50.02.001 exists to mark 50 years since NASA handed Omega something rarer than a sales record. A small silver pin, worn first by an astronaut and later by the person who earned it, not the brand that supplied the watch. That history shapes the dial, the caseback, and even the lining inside the strap, and it helps to walk through it before looking at the Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award on its own terms. It also explains why, five years after launch, this reference still shows up on waiting lists more often than in stock rooms.
The Silver Snoopy Award behind the Omega Speedmaster began in 1968, a year after the Apollo 1 fire took the lives of three astronauts and pushed NASA toward a renewed focus on flight safety. Public affairs officer Al Chop reached out to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz about using Snoopy as a safety mascot, and Schulz agreed on the spot, drawing the pin design himself and donating the artwork at no cost.
What makes the award unusual is who hands it over. An active astronaut presents the Silver Snoopy in person, at the recipient's own workplace, with coworkers standing around them. Each pin is sterling silver and has already flown on a NASA mission before it reaches its recipient, arriving with a signed certificate naming the exact flight. A person can only receive one in a lifetime and the honor is never given to astronauts themselves, only to the engineers, technicians, and contractors working behind them.
That selectivity is part of the point. NASA limits the award to roughly 1% of its eligible workforce each year, and since the program started, fewer than 15,000 people have received one across nearly six decades of spaceflight. Omega's own pin, awarded in 1970, sits inside that small group.
On the way to the moon in April 1970, an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 ruptured, forcing NASA to scrap the lunar landing and shift every resource toward getting the crew home alive. With onboard computers powered down to save what little energy remained, the astronauts had to time a critical engine burn by hand, using the chronograph on their Speedmaster Professional.
That burn lasted 14 seconds and needed to be precise enough to correct the spacecraft's return path. Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert used his Speedmaster to time the burn while Commander Jim Lovell manually flew the correction, guiding the craft by lining up Earth in the window since the guidance computer stayed off to save power. A watch originally built for motorsport timing ended up doing work no one at Omega had planned for when they designed it. NASA credited that contribution directly, and the Silver Snoopy Award followed later that same year.
The Speedmaster had already earned NASA's flight qualification back in 1965, after testing that included extreme temperature swings, vibration, and vacuum conditions no watch on the market had faced before. Apollo 13 gave that qualification a real test case, and the Silver Snoopy Award became NASA's way of putting a name to what the watch had actually done under pressure, not just what it was rated to survive on paper.
Omega's first tribute arrived in 2003 with reference 3578.51, a black dial Speedmaster carrying a printed Snoopy patch inside the small seconds counter and a production run of 5,441 pieces, a figure tied to the length of the Apollo 13 flight in hours and minutes. Sales moved slowly at first, since Omega had not yet built much of a public story around the connection to the mission.
The brand returned to the theme in 2015 with reference 311.32.42.30.04.003, unveiled at Baselworld for the 45th anniversary of the award. That version switched to a white dial for the first time in the series and expanded the caseback into a far more detailed scene, laying the groundwork for the direction Omega would take next.
The 310.32.42.50.02.001 landed on October 5, 2020, the exact 50 year date of the original award. It broke from the first two versions on two fronts. A solid silver dial took the place of the white one used in 2015, and Omega put the watch into ongoing production instead of another capped run, changing how collectors approached buying it compared to the earlier two editions. Where the 2003 and 2015 watches became collectible mainly because Omega stopped making them, this one had to earn that status while sitting on dealer shelves next to the standard Moonwatch.
Collectors have called this three watch lineup the Omega Speedmaster Snoopy watches for years, a shorthand that sits alongside the full Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award name printed on the box and papers for each of them.
The case measures 42mm in stainless steel, built on the fourth-generation Speedmaster shape Omega still uses across its current Moonwatch line, with a thickness of roughly 14.5mm and a sapphire crystal fitted over the dial.
Power comes from Caliber 3861, a manual-wind chronograph built as an update to the older 1861 movement long associated with the standard Moonwatch. Instead of the column wheel found on higher-tier movements, the 3861 uses the same cam-actuated switching system Omega has relied on since the original 861 in the late 1960s—a mechanically simpler approach that gives up some of the smoothness of a column wheel in exchange for durability. What sets the 3861 apart from its predecessors is the Co-Axial escapement and Master Chronometer certification, requiring magnetic resistance testing well beyond typical mechanical tolerances. Power reserve runs to roughly 50 hours.
Water resistance sits at 50 meters, a figure suited to a chronograph built for wrist timing over submersion. It is the same rating Omega uses across the modern Moonwatch family, so this reference gives up nothing on that front compared to the standard Speedmaster Professional.
Where the 2003 and 2015 editions used black and white dials, the 50th Anniversary edition switched to solid silver, laser-engraved with an Ag925 marking to confirm its metal content. The hour markers and hands are angular and finished in blue PVD, a departure from the steel tone used on other current Moonwatch references and one of the fastest ways to identify this model from across a room.
The subdial at nine o'clock is finished in blue and carries an embossed medallion of Snoopy dressed in his spacesuit, styled after the original NASA pin, with 50TH ANNIVERSARY printed above him. The bezel is blue ceramic fitted with a printed white tachymeter scale, keeping the dot-over-ninety marking that has appeared on Speedmaster bezels since the 1960s and tying the dial's blue accents together with the surrounding case.
Even the OMEGA name and Speedmaster text at twelve o'clock stay in their usual position, so nothing about the layout departs from a standard Moonwatch dial beyond color and the subdial medallion itself. Omega saved its biggest design departure for the caseback, which is where most of the engineering on this reference actually lives.
Turn the watch over and the sapphire caseback shows the far side of the moon, rendered through a micro structured metallization process instead of a printed or painted image. Behind that lunar surface sits a rotating Earth disc, completing one full turn every sixty seconds in sync with the small seconds hand visible on the dial's opposite side.
Press the chronograph pusher and a separate hand carrying a miniature Snoopy inside his Command and Service Module begins to travel, sending him toward the far side of the moon for as long as the chronograph keeps running. Above the scene, an engraving reads Eyes On The Stars, paired with the date October 5, 1970, marking the day Omega received its award. Both sit fixed in place by the same NAIAD LOCK mechanism used to seat the crystal.
Few Speedmasters put this much engineering into a part of the watch most owners will only see when the strap comes off. The animation runs entirely off the chronograph's own mechanism, so nothing about the caseback display draws on battery power or a separate module.
Originally launching at $9,600, the 50th Anniversary edition redefined how collectors view non-limited production runs. Despite being a standard catalog piece, demand far outpaced supply, creating waitlists that remain locked years after its introduction. Consequently, secondary market values have held a strong premium over original retail price.
While Omega originally shipped this reference exclusively on a blue nylon fabric strap, its standard Moonwatch lug geometry allows for easy customization. Many enthusiasts consider the watch elevated when paired with an authentic Omega steel bracelet, giving it the classic Moonwatch wrist presence alongside its distinctive blue and silver aesthetic.
Lone Star Timepieces is proud to offer a complete 2023 set in our Dallas showroom, fitted on the desirable stainless steel bracelet and fully box-and-papers verified for the discerning collector. Reach out to our team today to secure the iconic Omega Speedmaster Silver Snoopy Award 310.32.42.50.02.001 for your collection.
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