The Fortis brand was established in Grenchen, Switzerland in 1912. The company can lay claim to being the manufacturer of the first automatic watch when they put the legendary Harwood Automatic into production.

In 1994, after endurance tests on the borderline of modern physics,
the Star City Training Center chose the FORTIS OFFICIAL COSMONAUTS CHRONOGRAPH as part of their Official Cosmonauts' equipment. Since then, FORTIS Automatic wristwatches have proven their space capability in several missions, even outside of the protecting space station in outer space.

Even today, Fortis has been chosen as the official watch of the Russian Space Program on board the ISS and is also the official instrument watch to be used for the Mars 500 mission.