Tsar Bomba
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The Tsar Bomba (
code name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in ...
: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a
thermonuclear Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of ener ...
aerial bomb An aerial bomb is a type of Explosive weapon, explosive or Incendiary device, incendiary weapon intended to travel through the Atmosphere of Earth, air on a predictable trajectory. Engineers usually develop such bombs to be dropped from an aircra ...
, and by far the most powerful
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
ever created and tested. The Soviet physicist
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Alt ...
oversaw the project at Arzamas-16, while the main work of design was by Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, , and Yuri Trutnev. The project was ordered by First Secretary of the Communist Party
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
in July 1961 as part of the Soviet resumption of
nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...
after the Test Ban Moratorium, with the detonation timed to coincide with the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Tested on 30 October 1961, the test verified new design principles for high-yield thermonuclear charges, allowing, as its final report put it, the design of a nuclear device "of practically unlimited power". The bomb was dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft, and detonated autonomously above the cape Sukhoy Nos of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, from Mityushikha Bay, north of the Matochkin Strait. The detonation was monitored by
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
intelligence agencies, via a JKC-135A instrumentation aircraft, serial number 55-3127 (''Speed Light Bravo'') which was tasked to the area at the time for the nuclear test. For reasons unclear, Speed Light Bravo flew closer in proximity to the blast than expected and sustained scorching to the anti-radiation paint along the sides of the fuselage. As a result it became radioactive and was eventually required to be destroyed due to the nature of the damage. The bhangmeter results and other data suggested the bomb yielded around , which was the accepted yield in technical literature until 1991, when Soviet scientists revealed that their instruments indicated a yield of . As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate. In theory, the bomb would have had a yield over if it had included the
uranium-238 Uranium-238 ( or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it i ...
tamper which featured in the design but was omitted in the test to reduce radioactive fallout. As only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum in
Sarov Sarov () is a closed city, closed town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It was known as Gorkiy-130 (Горький-130) and Arzamas-16 (), after a (somewhat) nearby town of Arzamas,SarovLabsCreation of Nuclear Center Arzamas-16/ref> from 194 ...
and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Of Technical Physics, in Snezhinsk. Tsar Bomba was a modification of an earlier project, RN202, which used a ballistic case of the same size but a very different internal mechanism. Many published books, even some authored by those involved in product development of 602, contain inaccuracies that are replicated elsewhere, including wrongly identifying Tsar Bomba as RDS-202 or RN202.


Background

In the late 1950s
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, the US nuclear weapons arsenal greatly exceeded that of the USSR in quantity of weapons, total explosive yield of weapons, and the ability to deliver the weapon. In the early part of the decade, the
Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile compon ...
had begun deploying nuclear-capable bombers, as well as actual weapons, to airbases hosted by US allies within striking distance of the Soviet Union, as well as deploying them on aircraft carriers and on
medium-range ballistic missile A medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) is a type of ballistic missile with medium range (aeronautics), range, this last classification depending on the standards of certain organizations. Within the United States Department of Defense, U.S. D ...
s in the United Kingdom. The USSR had a credible ability to threaten American allies in Western Europe and Asia via a limited bomber and short-range missile force, had tested a multi-stage thermonuclear weapon in 1955, and had begun testing a prototype rocket for an
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
in 1957. Its leadership was well aware that the USSR's deployed nuclear forces in 1960 could not reliably and credibly threaten targets in the continental United States, and that in the event of war, the Soviet Union would struggle to reply in kind. This in turn threatened to weaken Soviet leverage in hot-spots like Berlin, which had been the subject of Soviet and American tension since the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Given the Soviet Union's strategic disadvantage concerning America's nuclear weapons possessions, foreign policy and
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
considerations during the leaderships of
Georgy Malenkov Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (8 January 1902 O.S. 26 December 1901">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 26 December 1901ref name=":6"> – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who br ...
and
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
made a response to the perceived US nuclear blackmail imperative for both international and domestic reasons. The creation of the Tsar Bomba represented part of a larger effort to maintain the concept of nuclear deterrence, and to impress (and terrify) both domestic and international audiences with the strength of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, even though the weapon itself was arguably impractical.


Name

The bomb was officially known as "product 602" () or "AN602", and codenamed "Ivan". The usage of different names can be a source of confusion. The Tsar Bomba, being a modification of (the) RN202, is sometimes mistakenly labelled as RDS-37, RDS-202 or PH202 (product 202). Unofficially, the bomb would later become known as "Tsar Bomba" and " Kuzka's mother" (, ). The name Tsar Bomba (loosely translated as ''Emperor of Bombs'') comes from an allusion to two other Russian historical artifacts, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell, both of which were created as showpieces but whose large size made them impractical for use. The name "Tsar Bomba" does not seem to have been used for the weapon prior to the 1990s. The name "Kuzka's Mother" was inspired by the statement of Khrushchev to then US Vice President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
: "We have funds at our disposal that will have dire consequences for you. We will show you Kuzka's mother!" The
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) designated the test as "JOE 111" using their "JOE" counting scheme, which had begun with
RDS-1 The RDS-1 (), also known as Izdeliye 501 (device 501) and First Lightning (), was the nuclear bomb used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. The United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was de ...
in 1949.


Development

The development of a very large bomb began in 1956 and was carried out in two stages. At the first stage, from 1956 to 1958, it was "product 202", which was developed in the recently created NII-1011. The modern name of NII-1011 is the "Russian Federal Nuclear Center or the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics" (RFNC-VNIITF). According to the official history of the institute, the order on the creation of a research institute in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building was signed on 5 April 1955; work at the NII-1011 began a little later. At the second stage of development, from 1960 to a successful test in 1961, the bomb was called "item 602" and was developed at KB-11 (VNIIEF), V. B. Adamsky was developing, and the physical scheme was developed by
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Alt ...
, Yu. N. Babaev, Yu. N. Smirnov, and Yu. A. Trutnev.


Product 202

After the successful test of the RDS-37, KB-11 employees (Sakharov, Zeldovich, and Dovidenko) performed a preliminary calculation and, on 2 February 1956, they handed over to N. I. Pavlov, a note with the parameters for charges of and the possibility of increasing the power to . After the creation in 1955 of the second nuclear center – NII-1011, in 1956, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers, the center was assigned the task of developing an ultra-high-power charge, which was called "Project 202". On 12 March 1956, a draft Joint Resolution of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the Central committee, highest organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Congresses. Elected by the ...
(CPSU Central Committee) and the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union on the preparation and testing of the 202 product was adopted. The project planned to develop a version of the RDS-37 with a capacity of . RDS-202 was designed with a maximum calculated power release of , with a diameter of , a length of , weighing with a parachute system and structurally coordinated with the Tu-95-202 carrier aircraft specially converted for its use. On 6 June 1956, the NII-1011 report described the RDS-202 thermonuclear device with a design power of up to with the required task of . In reality, this device was developed with an estimated power of , after testing the products "40GN", "245" and "205" its tests were deemed inappropriate and canceled. The Tsar Bomba differs from its parent design – the RN202 – in several places. The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage bomb with a Trutnev-Babaev second- and third-stage design, with a yield of 50 Mt.The yield of the test has been estimated at by different sources over time. Today all Russian sources use 50 Mt as the official figure. See the section "Was it 50 Megatons or 57?" at This is equivalent to about 1,570 times the combined energy of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 times the combined energy of all the conventional explosives used in
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, one quarter of the estimated yield of the
1883 eruption of Krakatoa Beginning on 20 May 1883, and ending on 21 October 1883, the volcanic island of Krakatoa, located in the Sunda Strait, had repeated, months long Types of volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruptions. The most destructive of these eruptions occurred o ...
, and 10% of the combined yield of all other nuclear tests to date. A three-stage hydrogen bomb uses a
fission bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
primary to compress a thermonuclear secondary, as in most hydrogen bombs, and then uses energy from the resulting explosion to compress a much larger additional thermonuclear stage. There is evidence that the Tsar Bomba had several third stages rather than a single very large one. RDS-202 was assembled on the principle of radiation implosion, which was previously tested during the creation of RDS-37. Since it used a much heavier secondary module than in the RDS-37, two primary modules (charges), located on opposite sides of the secondary module, were used to compress it. This physical charging scheme was later used in the design of the AN-602, but the AN-602 thermonuclear charge itself (secondary module) was new. The RDS-202 thermonuclear charge was manufactured in 1956, and was planned for testing in 1957, but was not tested and put into storage. Two years after the manufacture of the RDS-202, in July 1958, it was decided to remove it from storage, dismantle and use automation units and charge parts for experimental work. The CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a draft Joint Resolution on 12 March 1956, on the preparation and testing of ''izdeliye 202'', which read:


Product 602

In 1960, KB-11 began developing a thermonuclear device with a design capacity of . In February 1961, the leaders of KB-11 sent a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU with the subject line "Some questions of the development of nuclear weapons and methods of their use", which, among other things, raised the question of the expediency of developing such a 100 Mt device. On 10 July 1961, a discussion took place in the Central Committee of the CPSU, at which First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev supported the development and testing of this super-powerful bomb. To speed up the work on Tsar Bomba, it was based on the 202 Project, but was a new project, developed by a different group. For KB-11, six casings for the Project 202 bomb already manufactured at NII-1011 and a set of equipment developed for the 202 Project testing were used. Tsar Bomba had a "three-stage" design: the first stage is the necessary fission trigger. The second stage was two relatively small thermonuclear charges with a calculated contribution to the explosion of , which were used for radiation implosion of the third stage, the main thermonuclear module located between them, and starting a thermonuclear reaction in it, contributing 50 Mt of explosion energy. As a result of the thermonuclear reaction, huge numbers of high-energy fast neutrons were formed in the main thermonuclear module, which, in turn, initiated the fast fission nuclear reaction in the nuclei of the surrounding
uranium-238 Uranium-238 ( or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it i ...
, which would have added another 50 Mt of energy to the explosion, so that the estimated energy release of Tsar Bomba was around 100 Mt. The test of such a complete three-stage 100 Mt bomb was rejected due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination that would be caused by the fission reaction of large quantities of uranium-238. During the test, the bomb was used in a two-stage version. A. D. Sakharov suggested using the non-fissionable lead instead of the uranium-238 in the secondary's tamper, which reduced the bomb's energy to 50 Mt, and, in addition to reducing the amount of radioactive fission products, avoided the fireball's contact with the Earth's surface, thus eliminating radioactive contamination of the soil and the distribution of large amounts of fallout into the atmosphere. In the United States nuclear complex this use of lead tampers became common after the
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
testing disaster, and was known as the "materials substitution method". Many technical innovations were applied in the design of Tsar Bomba. The thermonuclear charge was made according to the "bifilar" scheme – the radiation implosion of the main thermonuclear stage was carried out from two opposite sides. These secondary charges produced X-ray compression of the main thermonuclear charge. For this, the second stage was separated into two fusion charges which were placed in the front and rear parts of the bomb, for which a synchronous detonation was required with a difference in initiation of no more than 100 nanoseconds. To ensure synchronous detonation of charges with the required accuracy, the sequencing unit of the detonation electronics was modified at KB-25 (now "Federal State Unitary Enterprise "NL Dukhov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Automation")(VNIIA).


Development of the carrier aircraft

The initial three-stage design of Tsar Bomba was capable of yielding approximately 100 Mt (approximately 3,000 times the power of the Hiroshima (15 kt) and Nagasaki (21 kt) bombs, combined); however, it was thought that this would have resulted in too much
nuclear fallout Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material that is created by the reactions producing a nuclear explosion. It is initially present in the mushroom cloud, radioactive cloud created by the explosion, and "falls out" of the cloud as it is ...
, and the aircraft delivering the bomb would not have had enough time to escape the explosion. To limit the amount of fallout, uranium-238 in the tamper was replaced with
lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...
. This eliminated
fast fission Fast fission is fission that occurs when a heavy atom absorbs a high-energy neutron, called a fast neutron, and splits. Most fissionable materials need thermal neutrons, which move more slowly. Fast reactors vs. thermal reactors Fast neutron r ...
reactions from the tamper by the fusion-stage neutrons, so that approximately 97% of the total yield resulted from
thermonuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of ener ...
alone. As such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, as most of the radioactive intensity of nuclear fallout is caused by the creation of fission products. There was a strong incentive for this modification, since most of the fallout from a test of the bomb would probably have descended on populated Soviet territory. The first studies on "Topic 242" began immediately after Igor Kurchatov talked with
Andrei Tupolev Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev (; – 23 December 1972) was a Russian and later Soviet aeronautical engineer known for his pioneering aircraft designs as the director of the Tupolev Design Bureau. Tupolev was an early pioneer of aeronautics i ...
in late 1954. Tupolev appointed his deputy for weapon systems, Aleksandr Nadashkevich, as the head of the topic. Subsequent analysis indicated that to carry such a heavy, concentrated load, the Tu-95 bomber carrying the Tsar Bomba needed to have its engines,
bomb bay The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over the ...
, suspension and release mechanisms extensively redesigned. The Tsar Bomba's dimensional and weight drawings were passed in the first half of 1955, together with its placement layout drawing. The Tsar Bomba's weight accounted for 15% of the weight of its Tu-95 carrier as expected. The carrier, aside from having its fuel tanks and bomb bay doors removed, had its BD-206 bomb-holder replaced by a new, heavier beam-type BD7-95-242 (or BD-242) holder attached directly to the longitudinal weight-bearing beams. The problem of how to release the bomb was also solved; the bomb-holder would release all three of its locks in a synchronous fashion via electro-automatic mechanisms as required by safety protocols. A Joint Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers (Nr. 357-28ss) was issued on 17 March 1956, which mandated that OKB-156 begin conversion of a Tu-95 bomber into a high-yield nuclear bomb carrier. These works were carried out in the Gromov Flight Research Institute from May to September 1956. The converted bomber, designated the Tu-95V, was accepted for duty and was handed over for flight tests, which including a release of a mock-up "superbomb", were conducted under the command of Colonel S. M. Kulikov until 1959, and passed without major issues. Despite the creation of the Tu-95V bomb-carrier aircraft, the test of the Tsar Bomba was postponed for political reasons: namely, Khrushchev's visit to the United States and a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95V during this period was flown to Uzyn, in today's Ukraine, and was used as a training aircraft; therefore, it was no longer listed as a combat aircraft. With the beginning of a new round of the Cold War in 1961, the test was resumed. The Tu-95V had all connectors in its automatic release mechanism replaced, the bomb bay doors removed and the aircraft itself covered with a special, reflective white paint. In late 1961, the aircraft was modified for testing Tsar Bomba at the Kuibyshev aircraft plant.


Test

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
, the first secretary of the Communist Party, announced the upcoming tests of a 50-Mt bomb in his opening report at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 17 October 1961. Before the official announcement, in a casual conversation, he told an American politician about the bomb, and this information was published on 8 September 1961, in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. The Tsar Bomba was tested on 30 October 1961. The
Tupolev Tu-95 The Tupolev Tu-95 (; NATO reporting name: "Bear") is a large, four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform. Maiden flight, First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the Soviet Long Range Aviation, Long-Range Avia ...
V aircraft No. 5800302 carrying the bomb took off from the Olenya airfield, and flew to State Test Site No. 6 of the USSR Ministry of Defense on
Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...
Боголепов и Гостев, 08:57 with a crew of nine: * Test pilot – Major Andrei Yegorovich Durnovtsev * Lead navigator of tests – Major Ivan Nikiforovich Kleshch * Second pilot – Captain Mikhail Konstantinovich Kondratenko * Navigator-operator of the radar – Lieutenant Anatoly Sergeevich Bobikov * Radar operator – Captain Alexander Filippovich Prokopenko * Flight engineer – Captain Grigory Mikhailovich Yevtushenko * Radio operator – Lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Mashkin * Gunner / radio operator – Captain Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Snetkov * Gunner / radio operator – Corporal Vasily Yakovlevich Bolotov The test was also attended by the Tupolev Tu-16 laboratory aircraft, no. 3709, equipped for monitoring the tests, and its crew: * Leading test pilot – Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Fyodorovich Martynenko * Second pilot – Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Ivanovich Mukhanov * Leading navigator – Major Semyon Artemievich Grigoryuk * Navigator-operator of the radar – Major Vasily Timofeevich Muzlanov * Gunner / radio operator – Senior Sergeant Mikhail Emelyanovich Shumilov Both aircraft were painted with special reflective paint to minimize heat damage. Despite this, Durnovtsev and his crew were given only a 50% chance of surviving the test. The bomb, weighing , was so large ( long by in diameter) that the Tu-95V had to have its
bomb bay The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over the ...
doors and fuselage
fuel tank A fuel tank (also called a petrol tank or gas tank) is a safe container for Flammability, flammable fluids, often gasoline or diesel fuel. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine sys ...
s removed. The bomb was attached to an ,
parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...
, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about away from
ground zero A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...
, giving them a 50 percent chance of survival. The bomb was released two hours after takeoff from a height of on a test target within Sukhoy Nos. The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 (or 11:33; USGS earthquake monitors list the event as occurring at 11:33:31)
Moscow Time Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...
on 30 October 1961, over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), at a height of ASL ( above the target) By this time the Tu-95V had already escaped to away, and the Tu-16 away. When detonation occurred, the
shock wave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...
caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of and the Tu-16 at . After the shock wave reached the aircraft, the Tu-16 had its speed increased in a split second from 880 to 980 km/h, and dropped in the air due to the combination of the shock wave with exceptionally high air density drop immediately afterwards. However, both aircraft managed to recover and land safely. According to initial data, the Tsar Bomba had a nuclear yield of (exceeding what the design itself would suggest) and was overestimated at values all the way up to . Both aircraft had their frames burned-out black by the radiation in all parts exposed to the blast. Although simplistic fireball calculations predicted it would be large enough to hit the ground, the bomb's own shock wave bounced back and prevented this. The fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost away. The
mushroom cloud A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently e ...
was about high (nearly eight times the height of
Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...
), which meant that the cloud was above the
stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...
and well inside the
mesosphere The mesosphere (; ) is the third layer of the atmosphere, directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere, temperature decreases as altitude increases. This characteristic is used to define limits: it be ...
when it peaked. The cap of the mushroom cloud had a peak width of and its base was wide. A Soviet cameraman said:
The clouds beneath the aircraft and in the distance were lit up by the powerful flash. The sea of light spread under the hatch and even clouds began to glow and became transparent. At that moment, our aircraft emerged from between two cloud layers and down below in the gap a huge bright orange ball was emerging. The ball was powerful and arrogant like Jupiter. Slowly and silently it crept upwards ... Having broken through the thick layer of clouds it kept growing. It seemed to suck the whole Earth into it. The spectacle was fantastic, unreal, supernatural.


Test results

The explosion of Tsar Bomba, according to the classification of
nuclear explosion A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, th ...
s, was an ultra-high-power low-air nuclear explosion. * The flare was visible at a distance of more than . It was observed in Norway, Greenland and Alaska. * The explosion's mushroom cloud rose to a height of . The shape of the "hat" was two-tiered; the diameter of the upper tier was estimated at , the lower tier at . The cloud was observed from the explosion site. * The blast wave circled the globe three times, with the first one taking 36 hours and 27 minutes. * A seismic wave in the Earth's crust, generated by the shock wave of the explosion, circled the globe three times. * The atmospheric pressure wave resulting from the explosion was recorded three times in New Zealand: the station in
Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
recorded an increase in pressure at 21:57, on 30 October, coming from the north-west, at 07:17 on 31 October, from the southeast, and at 09:16, on 1 November, from the northwest (all GMT), with amplitudes of , , and respectively. The average wave speed is estimated at , or 9.9 degrees of the
great circle In mathematics, a great circle or orthodrome is the circular intersection of a sphere and a plane passing through the sphere's center point. Discussion Any arc of a great circle is a geodesic of the sphere, so that great circles in spher ...
per hour. * Glass shattered in windows from the explosion in a village on Dikson Island. * The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dikson Island, but there are no reports of destruction or damage to structures even in the
urban-type settlement Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...
of Amderma, which is to the landfall. * Ionization of the atmosphere caused interference to radio communications even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes. * Radioactive contamination of the experimental field with a radius of in the
hypocenter A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its ...
area was no more than 1 milliroentgen / hour. The testers appeared at the explosion site 2 hours later; radioactive contamination posed practically no danger to the test participants. *In the Norwegian border village of Kiberg, fishermen reported injured
cod Cod (: cod) is the common name for the demersal fish genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family (biology), family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gad ...
, and border guards reported having contracted
cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
in large numbers over the following years, though the latter was never confirmed as being as a result of the bomb. All buildings in the village of Severny, both wooden and brick, located from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed; stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors; and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse at a distance of . The heat from the
explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume of a given amount of matter associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Explosions may also be generated ...
could have caused third-degree burns away from ground zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement away; windowpanes were partially broken for distances up to . Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland. Despite being detonated above ground, its seismic body wave magnitude was estimated at 5.0–5.25.


Reactions

Immediately after the test, several United States politicians condemned the Soviet Union. Prime Minister of Sweden Tage Erlander saw the blast as the Soviets' answer to a personal appeal to halt nuclear testing that he had sent the Soviet leader in the week prior to the blast. The
British Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign an ...
, Prime Minister of Norway Einar Gerhardsen, Prime Minister of Denmark
Viggo Kampmann Olfert Viggo Fischer Kampmann (; 21 July 1910 – 3 June 1976) was a Danish politician who served as the leader of the Danish Social Democrats and prime minister of Denmark from 1960 to 1962. He formed his first cabinet just prior to the 1960 ...
and others also released statements condemning the blast. Soviet and Chinese radio stations mentioned the US underground nuclear test of a much smaller bomb (possibly the ''Mink'' test) carried out the day prior, without mentioning the Tsar Bomba test.


Consequences of the test

The creation and testing of a superbomb were of great political importance; the Soviet Union demonstrated its potential in creating a nuclear arsenal of great power (at that time, the most powerful thermonuclear charge tested by the United States,
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
, had been 15 Mt). After the Tsar Bomba test, the United States did not increase the power of its own thermonuclear tests and, in 1963 in Moscow, the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, Outer Space and Under Water was signed. The main scientific result of the test was the experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of multistage thermonuclear charges. It also confirmed the theory that there is no fundamental limit to the power of a thermonuclear charge. This fact had probably been first postulated in October 1949 (three years before the
Ivy Mike Ivy Mike was the code name, codename given to the first full-scale test of a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear device, in which a significant fraction of the explosive nuclear weapon yield, yield comes from nuclear fusion. Ivy Mike was detona ...
test which utilized the
Teller-Ulam A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design Nuclear weapons design are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to det ...
design), when in the supplement to the official report of the General Advisory Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission, nuclear physicists
Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...
and
Isidor Isaac Rabi Israel Isidor Isaac Rabi (; ; July 29, 1898 – January 11, 1988) was an American nuclear physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging. H ...
stated that thermonuclear weapons can potentially have "unlimited destructive power". The explosive power of the bomb could have easily been raised by another 50 Mt by using a uranium-238 sheath instead of lead. It was consciously decided to replace the cladding material and thus decrease the yield in order to reduce radioactive fallout below an acceptable level. The explosion is one of the cleanest in the history of atmospheric nuclear tests per unit of power. The first stage of the bomb was a uranium charge with a capacity of 1.5 Mt, which produced a large amount of radioactive fallout, but more than 97% of the explosion power was provided by a thermonuclear fusion reaction, which does not create a significant amount of radioactive contamination. A 2015 expedition measuring the glaciers of Novaya Zemlya reported 65–130 times more radioactivity than the background in neighboring areas, due to nuclear testing, including Tsar Bomba.
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Alt ...
was one of the most prominent speakers against nuclear proliferation. He played a key role in signing the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Sakharov became an advocate of civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union. In 1973 he was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
and in 1974 was awarded the
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca The Prix mondial Cino Del Duca (Cino Del Duca World Prize) is an international literary award from France. With an award amount of , it is among the richest literary prizes. Origins and operations It was established in 1969 in France by French b ...
. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, but was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect it. His wife Yelena Bonner read his speech at the acceptance ceremony.


Analysis

The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest human-made explosion in history. For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the US, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of . The largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
) yielded because of an unexpectedly high involvement of lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from . The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around (e.g., the
SS-18 The R-36 () is a family of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and space launch vehicles (Tsyklon) designed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The original R-36 was deployed under the GRAU index 8K67 and was given the NATO reportin ...
Mod. 3
warhead A warhead is the section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket (weapon), rocket, torpedo, or bomb. Classification Types of warheads include: *E ...
). The weight and size of the Tsar Bomba limited the range and speed of the specially-modified bomber carrying it. Delivery by an
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
would have required a much stronger missile (the
Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...
started its development as that delivery system). It has been estimated that detonating the original design would have increased the world's total fission fallout since the invention of the atomic bomb by 25%. It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create a nuclear fallout that was unacceptable in terms of pollution from a single test, as well as a near-certainty that the release plane and crew would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius. The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield
thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
s designed by the Soviet Union and the United States during the 1950s (e.g., the Mark 17 and B41 nuclear bombs).


Practical applications

The Tsar Bomba was never intended to be a practical or mass-produced weapon; it was a single product, the design of which allowed reaching a power of 100 Mt. The test of a 50-Mt bomb was, among other things, a test of the performance of the product design for 100 Mt. However, there were several "super-heavy" ballistic missiles that were developed by the Soviet Union whose early impetus was at least partially, if not entirely, designed to give them a capability to use warheads in the 50-150 Mt range. These included: * UR-500 – (warhead mass – 40 tons, virtually implemented as a carrier rocket – "
Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...
" – GRAU index – 8K82) * N-1 – (warhead mass – , the development was reoriented into a carrier for the lunar program, the project was brought to the stage of flight design tests and closed in 1976, GRAU index – 11A52). * R-56 – (GRAU index – 8K67) In the absence of a push for such high-yield weapons, all of these rocket programs were either used as launch vehicles for the Soviet space program, or cancelled.


Films

* Footage from a Soviet documentary about the bomb is featured in '' Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie'' (Visual Concept Entertainment, 1995), where it is referred to as the ''Russian monster bomb''. The video has a few issues regarding incorrect facts: It states that the ''Tsar Bomba'' project broke the voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests. In fact, the Soviets had restarted their test program and broken the unilateral voluntary moratorium 30 days before ''Tsar Bomba'', testing 45 times in that month. Since the moratorium was unilateral there was no legal obstacle. The US had declared their own one-year unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and, as that year had expired, the US had already announced that it considered itself free to resume testing without further notice. Later it was stated that the US had not resumed testing at the time of the ''Tsar Bomba'' test. That was incorrect, as the US had in fact tested five times under Operation Nougat between the USSR's ending of the moratorium on 1 October and the Tsar Bomba test on 30 October. * "World's Biggest Bomb", a 2011 episode of the PBS documentary series '' Secrets of the Dead'' produced by Blink Films &
WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...
, chronicles the events leading to the detonations of
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
and the Tsar Bomba. * In connection with the celebration of 75 years of nuclear industry,
Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (commonly referred to as Rosatom rus, Росатом, p=rosˈatəm}), also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, (), or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian State corporation (Russia), sta ...
released a declassified Russian language documentary video of the Tsar Bomba test on
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
in August 2020.


See also

* Father of All Bombs – largest Russian conventional bomb *
Soviet atomic bomb project The Soviet atomic bomb project was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers were secretly developing a " superwea ...
* Doomsday device * Sundial (weapon)


Notes


References


External links

* * * {{Coord, 73, 48, 26, N, 54, 58, 54, E, type:event_region:RU, display=title 1961 in military history 1961 in science 1961 in the Soviet Union Explosions in 1961 Cold War weapons of the Soviet Union Novaya Zemlya Nuclear bombs of the Soviet Union Russian inventions Soviet inventions Soviet nuclear weapons testing October 1961 in Europe October 1961 in Asia