Waltham completes "space" clock

From American Horologist and Jeweler magazine, December 1959

Waltham completes "space" clock

ADVANCED ENGINEERING and manufacturing skills of the Waltham Precision Instrument Company are aiding in the efforts of the United States to put a man into space and to bring him back alive, accoraing to the . president of the firm, 1. R. Ripley.


In June Waltham undertook to develop a "Satellite Clock" or Chronometric Programmer for Project Mercury, and their success was recently announced. The "Satellite Clock" is more than a super-refined watch, the company reports: It is a complicated device combining electrical and mechanical systems that will produce telemetering signals to earth among other important functions.


Waltham Precision Instrument is the offspring of the Waltham Watch Company which made watches continuously from 1850 to 1955, when plant operations ceased. At the peak of its production the company employed around 2,500 persons.


New management, under the name of Waltham Precision Instrument Co., took over in June, 1957, and the current staff is 375, said Andrew C. Bayly, vice president of engineering of the company.