An 602 thermonuclear aerial bomb. Soviet tsar-bomb. More powerful, even more powerful

Tsar bomb

"Tsar-bomba", "Kuzkin's mother" - this was the name of the Soviet-made in 1954-1961. thermonuclear aerial bomb AN602, the explosion of which in the fall of 1961 showed all the strength and power of the Soviet Union. The power of this bomb ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons of TNT equivalent, it became the most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind.

The development of this bomb was carried out by a group of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR IV Kurchatov. The development team included A.D. Sakharov, V.B. Adamsky, Yu.N. Babaev, Yu.A. Trutnev, Yu.N. Smirnov and others. For the development of this bomb, Sakharov was awarded the third medal of the Hero of Socialist Labor.

The name "Kuzka's mother" appeared under the impression famous saying N. S. Khrushchev “We will show America Kuzkin’s mother!”. Officially, the AN602 bomb had no name.

Where is it designed?

The myth is widespread that the "Tsar Bomba" was designed on the instructions of N. S. Khrushchev and in record time - supposedly the entire development and manufacture took 112 days. In fact, work on the RN202 / AN602 was carried out for more than seven years - from autumn 1954 to autumn 1961 (with a two-year break in 1959-1960). At the same time, in 1954-1958. work on the 100-megaton bomb was carried out by NII-1011.

It is worth noting that the above information about the start date of work is in partial conflict with official history Institute (now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics / RFNC-VNIITF). According to it, the order to create an appropriate research institute in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR was signed only on April 5, 1955, and work at NII-1011 began a few months later. But in any case, only the final stage of the development of AN602 (already in KB-11 - now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics / RFNC-VNIIEF) in the summer-autumn of 1961 (and by no means the entire project as a whole !) really took 112 days. Nevertheless - AN602 was not just a renamed PH202. A number of design changes were made to the design of the bomb - as a result, for example, its centering changed noticeably. AN602 had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage (the estimated contribution to the explosion power is 1.5 megatons) triggered a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (the contribution to the explosion power is 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the nuclear "Jekyll reaction - Haida" in the third stage (another 50 megatons of power).

The original bomb

The original version of the bomb was rejected due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination that it was supposed to cause. It was decided not to use the third stage of the explosion process ("Jekyll-Hyde reaction") and to replace the uranium components with their lead equivalent.

The first studies on the "topic 242" began immediately after I. V. Kurchatov's negotiations with A. N. Tupolev (took place in the autumn of 1954), who appointed his deputy for weapons systems A. V. Nadashkevich as the head of the topic. The strength analysis carried out showed that the suspension of such a large concentrated load would require major changes in the power circuit of the original aircraft, in the design of the bomb bay and in the suspension and drop devices. In the first half of 1955, the overall and weight drawing of the AN602 was agreed, as well as the layout drawing of its placement. As expected, the mass of the bomb was 15% of the take-off mass of the carrier, but its overall dimensions required the removal of the fuselage fuel tanks. The new beam holder BD7-95-242 (BD-242) developed for the AN602 suspension was similar in design to the BD-206, but much more load-bearing. It had three Der5-6 bomber locks with a carrying capacity of 9 tons each. BD-242 was attached directly to the power longitudinal beams, edging the bomb bay. The problem of controlling the release of the bomb was also successfully solved - electric automatics ensured the exclusively synchronous opening of all three locks (the need for which was dictated by security conditions).

On March 17, 1956, a joint resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 357-228ss was issued, according to which OKB-156 was to begin converting the Tu-95 into a carrier of high-power nuclear bombs. These works were carried out at the LII VVS (Zhukovsky) from May to September 1956. Then the Tu-95V was accepted by the customer and handed over for flight tests, which were conducted (including dropping the "superbomb" mock-up) under the leadership of Colonel S. M. Kulikov until 1959 and passed without any special remarks. In October 1959, the Dnepropetrovsk crew delivered the "Kuzkin's mother" to the training ground.

The carrier of the "superbomb" was created, but its real tests were postponed for political reasons: Khrushchev was going to the USA, and there was a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95V was transferred to the airfield in Uzin, where it was used as a training aircraft and was no longer listed as fighting machine. However, in 1961, with the beginning of a new round of the Cold War, the testing of the "superbomb" again became relevant. The Tu-95V was urgently replaced with all the connectors in the electric reset system and the bomb bay doors were removed - a real bomb in terms of mass (26.5 tons, including the weight of the parachute system - 0.8 tons) and dimensions turned out to be slightly larger than the layout. In particular, now its vertical dimension exceeded the dimensions of the bomb bay in height.

Tests

The prepared Tu-95V was transferred to the Olenya airfield. Soon it with a special reflective coating white color and a real bomb on board, piloted by a crew led by Major A.E. Durnovtsev, headed for Novaya Zemlya.

The test of the most powerful explosive device in the world took place on October 30, 1961, during the days of the XXII Congress of the CPSU. But initially, the aircraft, which had already flown on a mission and equipped, had to be returned to the base due to the failure of the radar guidance device. A dilemma arose - to drop the bomb and lose the fruits of enormous efforts, or to land the plane with the bomb already cocked, with the risk of detonating it. Academician Sakharov and his colleague personally signed a document certifying that the landing was safe. And only after landing and troubleshooting did the second flight take place, which ended in success.

The bombing took place within the Dry Nose nuclear test site (73.85, 54.573°51′ N 54°30′ E / 73.85° N 54.5° E (G)) at an altitude of 4200 m above sea level, 4000 m above the target (however, there are other data on the height of the explosion - in particular, the figures were 3700 m above the target (3900 m above sea level) and 4500 m). The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent. There is also evidence that, according to initial data, the explosion power of AN602 was significantly overestimated and was estimated at up to 75 megatons.

Even in the "half" version (and the maximum power of such a bomb is 100 megatons), the energy of the explosion was ten times higher than the total power of all explosives used by all the warring parties during the Second World War (including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

shock wave from the explosion

The shock wave from the explosion circled three times Earth, the first time - in 36 hours 27 minutes. The light flash was so bright that, despite the continuous cloudiness, it was visible even from the command post in the village of Belushya Guba (almost 200 km away from the epicenter of the explosion).

The mushroom cloud rose to a height of 67 km. By the time of the explosion, while the bomb was slowly descending on a huge parachute from a height of 10500 to the estimated point of detonation, the Tu-95 carrier aircraft with the crew and its commander, Major Andrei Egorovich Durnovtsev, was already in the safe zone. The commander returned to his airfield as a lieutenant colonel, Hero of the Soviet Union.

The results of the explosion of the charge, which received the name "Tsar Bomba" in the West, were impressive:
* Nuclear mushroom explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers; the diameter of its two-tier "hat" reached (near the upper tier) 95 kilometers.
* The fireball of a rupture with a radius of approximately 4.6 kilometers reached the surface of the earth - which is not typical for airborne nuclear explosions.
* Radiation caused third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away.
* The shock wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times.
* Atmospheric ionization caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes.
* Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion at a distance of a thousand kilometers from its center.
* The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dixon Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers. However, sources do not report any destruction or damage to structures, even in those located much closer (280 km) to the landfill, the urban-type settlement of Amderma and the settlement of Belushya Guba.

The main goal that was set and was achieved by this test was to demonstrate the Soviet Union's possession of an unlimited power weapon of mass destruction - the TNT equivalent of the most powerful thermal nuclear bomb from those tested by that time in the USA, was almost four times less than that of AN602. Also this test Soviet Union demonstrated the ability to create hydrogen bomb any power and means of delivering the bomb to the point of detonation.

No limit on bomb power

Indeed, an increase in the power of a hydrogen bomb is achieved by simply increasing the mass of the working material, so that, in principle, there are no factors preventing the creation of a 100-megaton or 500-megaton hydrogen bomb.

In the tested copy of the bomb, to increase the explosion power by another 50 megatons, it was enough to make the third stage of the bomb (it was the shell of the second stage) not from lead, but from uranium-238, as expected. The replacement of the shell material and the lowering of the explosion power were due only to the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not to reduce the weight of the bomb, as is sometimes believed. However, the weight of AN602 did decrease from this, but only slightly - the uranium shell should have weighed about 2800 kg, while the lead shell of the same volume - based on the lower density of lead - about 1700 kg. The resulting lightening of just over one ton is hardly noticeable with a total mass of AN602 of at least 24 tons (even if we take the most modest estimate) and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation.

Nor can it be argued that "the explosion was one of the cleanest in the history of atmospheric nuclear tests" - the first stage of the bomb was a uranium charge with a capacity of 1.5 megatons, which in itself provided a large amount of radioactive fallout. Besides, fire ball the explosion touched the ground, and this led to the rise into the atmosphere of an additional large number of particles of the soil irradiated by the explosion. Nevertheless, we can assume that for a nuclear explosive device of such power, AN602 was indeed quite clean.

Location of the explosion

The use of the AN602 clearly demonstrated the Soviet Union's possession of an unlimited power weapon of mass destruction. The scientific result was an experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of thermonuclear charges of a multistage type.

AN602 was a modification of the RN202 project.

The Tsar Bomba is the most powerful explosive device manufactured in the history of mankind. The bomb is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most powerful thermonuclear device that has passed the test.

Project Goals

In the mid-1950s, the United States had unconditional superiority over the USSR in terms of nuclear weapons. Although thermonuclear charges had already been created in the USSR by that time, they did not have the necessary diversity. Also there was no effective means delivery of nuclear charges to the United States in both the 1950s and 1961. The USSR did not have a real possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States.

In addition to foreign policy and propaganda considerations - to respond to US nuclear blackmail - the creation of the Tsar Bomba fit into the concept of nuclear deterrence, adopted during the leadership of the country by G. M. Malenkov and N. S. Khrushchev, which was reduced to a nuclear bluff in order to create the appearance nuclear equilibrium.

Also on June 23, 1960, the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued on the creation of a super-heavy ballistic missile N-1 (GRAU index - 11A52) with a warhead weighing 75 tons (for a comparative assessment - the mass of the warhead tested in 1964 intercontinental ICBM UR-500 was 14 tons).

The development of new designs of nuclear and thermonuclear munitions requires testing, which confirms the operability of the device, its safety in emergency situations, and confirms the estimated energy release during the explosion.

Before the bomb, in the early 1950s, a similar torpedo was being developed. There were no aviation and missile systems with the necessary tactical and technical characteristics in the USSR at that time, and the country's leadership decided to create a thermonuclear torpedo and a submarine to deliver it to the enemy's coast: September 12, 1952 I. V. Stalin signed a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the design and construction of object 627" (a submarine with a nuclear power plant). It was assumed that it would be the carrier of the T-15 torpedo with a thermonuclear charge with a capacity of up to 100 megatons of TNT equivalent. Due to unsuccessful tests, the T-15 was not completed, the submarine received conventional torpedoes. ( )

Name

Official names: "product 602", "AN602", "Ivan".

Currently, the difference in names becomes a cause of confusion when AH602 is mistakenly identified with RDS-37 or with PH202 (product 202). (AN602 was a modification of RN202. Correspondence for RN202 originally used the designation "RDS-202", "202" and "product B" [ ] .)

Unofficial names are "Tsar Bomba" and "Kuzkin's Mother". The name "Tsar Bomba" emphasizes that this is the most powerful weapon in history. The name “Kuzka's mother” appeared under the impression of N. S. Khrushchev’s statement to US Vice President Richard Nixon: “We have means at our disposal that will have grave consequences for you. We to you let's show Kuz'kin's mother!» .

Development

Development in excess of powerful 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 NII-1011 created shortly before. The current name of NII-1011 is "Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute theoretical physics(RFNC-VNIITF). According to the official history of the Institute, the order to establish a research institute within the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR was signed on April 5, 1955; work at NII-1011 began a little later. [ ]

At the second stage of development, from 1960 to a successful test in 1961, the bomb was called “product 602” and was developed at KB-11 (now VNIIEF), V. B. Adamsky was developing, in addition to him, the physical scheme was developed by A. D. Sakharov , Yu. N. Babaev , Yu. N. Smirnov , Yu. A. Trutnev .

Item 202

After the creation in 1955 of the second nuclear center - NII-1011, in 1956, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers, he was given the task of developing a super-high power charge, which was called "project 202".

On March 12, 1956, a draft Joint Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the preparation and testing of product 202 was adopted. The project planned to develop a version of the RDS-37 with a capacity of 30 Mt FC

On June 6, 1956, the NII-1011 report described the RDS-202 thermonuclear device with an estimated power of up to 38 Mt with the required task of 20-30 Mt. In reality, this device was developed with an estimated power of 15 Mt, after testing the products "40GN", "245" and "205", its tests were found to be inappropriate and canceled.

Item 602

AN602 was not a renamed RN202, just to speed up testing, it was decided to use the developments of project 202. In KB-11 (VNIIEF), six cases for the project 202 bomb already manufactured at NII-1011 (VNIITF) were taken and a set of equipment developed for its testing was used.

AN602 had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage ( settlement deposit into the explosion power - 1.5 megatons) launched a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (contribution to the explosion power - 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the nuclear "Jekyll-Hyde reaction" (fission of nuclei in blocks of uranium-238 under the action of fast neutrons produced by the reaction thermonuclear fusion) in the third stage (another 50 megatons of power), so that the total design power of AN602 was 101.5 megatons.

A test of the full, 100 Mt version of the bomb was abandoned due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination it was supposed to cause. A. D. Sakharov proposed using nuclear-passive material in the secondary bomb module instead of U 238, which reduced the yield to 50 Mt and, in addition to reducing the number of fission fragments, made it possible to avoid touching the fireball earth's surface, which excluded radioactive contamination of the surface and the rise of a large amount of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.

Development of a carrier aircraft

To deliver the bomb, a team led by Alexander Nadashkevich in 1955 developed a modified version of the Tu-95 bomber - Tu-95V, another name is Tu-95-202. This aircraft was made in a single copy.

The first studies on this topic began immediately after I. V. Kurchatov's negotiations in the autumn of 1954 with A. N. Tupolev, who appointed his deputy for weapons systems, A. V. Nadashkevich, as the head of the topic. The analysis showed that the suspension of such a large bomb would require major changes in the aircraft. In the first half of 1955, the dimensions, weight and placement of the AN202 in the aircraft were agreed upon. As expected, the mass of the bomb was 15% of the take-off mass of the carrier, but due to its size, the aircraft was left without external fuel tanks. A new beam holder based on BD-206 was developed for the AN202 suspension. The developed new BD7-95-242 (BD-242) was much more carrying capacity than BD-206, it had three Der5-6 bomber locks with a carrying capacity of 9 tons each. Three locks created the problem of safely dropping the bomb, and it was solved - electric automatics ensured the synchronous opening of all three locks.

On March 17, 1956, the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 357-228ss was issued, according to which OKB-156 was to begin converting the Tu-95 into a carrier of high-power nuclear bombs. These works were carried out at the MAP (Zhukovsky) from May to September 1956. Then the Tu-95V was accepted by the customer and handed over for flight tests, which were conducted (including dropping the “superbomb” mock-up) under the leadership of Colonel S. M. Kulikov until 1959 and passed without any special remarks.

The carrier of the “superbomb” was created, but its real tests were postponed for political reasons: Khrushchev was going to the USA, and there was a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95V was transferred to the airfield in Uzin, where it was used as a training aircraft and was no longer listed as a combat vehicle. In 1961, with the decision to test, the Tu-95V was urgently replaced with all connectors in the electric reset system and the bomb bay doors were removed - a real bomb in terms of weight (26.5 tons, including the weight of the parachute system - 0.8 tons) and dimensions turned out to be somewhat larger than the layout (in particular, now its vertical dimension exceeded the dimensions of the bomb bay in height). The aircraft was also covered with a special white reflective paint.

In the fall of 1961, the aircraft was modified for testing AN602 at the Kuibyshev Aviation Plant.

Tests

Khrushchev personally announced the upcoming tests of the 50-megaton bomb in his report on October 17, 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU. Before the official announcement, in an informal conversation, he told one of the American politicians about the bomb, and this information was published on September 8, 1961 by The New York Times.

The bomb tests took place on October 30, 1961. The prepared Tu-95V No. 5800302 with a bomb on board took off from the Olenya airfield and headed for Novaya Zemlya. The crew of the carrier aircraft was 9 people:

lead test pilot Major Andrey Egorovich Durnovtsev;
lead test navigator Major Kleshch Ivan Nikiforovich;
second pilot Captain Mikhail Kondratenko;
radar navigator st. Lieutenant Bobikov Anatoly Sergeevich;
radar operator captain Alexander Filippovich Prokopenko;
Flight Engineer Grigory Mikhailovich Yevtushenko Captain;
Art. gunner-radio operator Lieutenant Mashkin Mikhail Petrovich;
KOU, gunner-radio operator captain Snetkov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich;
gunner-radio operator corporal s / s Bolotov Vasily Yakovlevich.

The Tu-16A laboratory aircraft (serial, equipped for monitoring tests) tail number 3709 with a crew also participated in the tests:

lead test pilot Lieutenant Colonel Martynenko Vladimir Fedorovich;
second pilot Lieutenant Mukhanov Vladimir Ivanovich;
leading navigator Major Grigoryuk Semyon Artemyevich;
navigator-radar operator Major Muzlanov Vasily Timofeevich;
gunner-radio operator sergeant s / s Shumilov Mikhail Emelyanovich.

At 2 hours 3 minutes after take-off at an altitude of 11.5 km above the target level, the bomb was dropped from the carrier aircraft, after which it descended on the main parachute with an area of 1600 m², the total mass of the parachute system, which included five more pilot chutes, triggered by three "cascades ", was 800 kg.

The bomb was detonated by a barometric fuse 189 seconds after being dropped at 11:33 Moscow time (08:33 UTC) at an altitude of 4200 m above sea level (4000 m above the target).

Other sources give different heights of the explosion, from 3700 m above the target (3900 m above sea level) to 4500 m.

The carrier aircraft at the time of the explosion was at a distance of about 39 km, and the laboratory aircraft - 53.5 km. The shock wave caught up with the carrier aircraft at a distance of 115 km, the effect of the shock wave from the explosion was felt in the form of vibration and did not affect the aircraft's flight mode. After landing, several spots from the impact of the explosion flash were seen on the fuselage.

By the time the shock wave arrived, the aircraft-laboratory was at a distance of 205 km from the explosion site. The measured explosion power (58.6 megatons) significantly exceeded the design one (51.5 megatons). There is evidence that according to the initial data, the explosion power of AN602 was significantly overestimated and was estimated at values up to 75 megatons.

Test results

The scientific result of the test was an experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of thermonuclear charges of a multistage type. It was experimentally proven that there is no fundamental limitation on increasing the power of a thermonuclear charge (however, on October 30, 1949, three years before the Mike test, in the Supplement to the official report of the General Advisory Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission, nuclear physicists Enrico Fermi and Isidor Rabi noted that thermonuclear weapons have "unlimited destructive power" and that the cost of increasing the yield of a munition in fiscal year 1950 prices was 60 cents per kiloton of TNT). In the tested copy of the bomb, to raise the explosion power by another 50 megatons, it was enough to replace the lead sheath with uranium-238, as was supposed to be regular. The replacement of the shell material and the lowering of the explosion power were due to the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not the desire to reduce the weight of the bomb, as is sometimes believed (the weight of AN602 did decrease from this, but only slightly - the uranium shell should have weighed approximately 2800 kg, while the lead a shell of the same volume - based on the lower density of lead - about 1700 kg The resulting lightening of just over one ton is hardly noticeable with a total mass of AN602 of at least 24 tons (even if we take the most modest estimate) and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation .[ ]

The explosion was one of the cleanest in the history of atmospheric nuclear tests in terms of unit of power. The first stage of the bomb was a uranium charge with a capacity of 1.5 megatons, which in itself provided a large amount of radioactive fallout, however, we can assume that AN602 was indeed relatively clean - more than 97% of the explosion power was produced by a thermonuclear reaction that practically did not create radioactive contamination synthesis.

A distant consequence was increased radioactivity accumulated in the glaciers of Novaya Zemlya. According to the 2015 expedition, due to nuclear tests, the glaciers of Novaya Zemlya are 65-130 times more radioactive than the background in neighboring areas, including due to the Kuz'kina Mother tests.

Prospects for practical use

AN602 was never a weapon, it was a single product, the design of which made it possible to achieve a yield of 100 Mt TEQ, the test of a 50-megaton bomb was also a test of the operability of the product design for 100 megatons. This bomb was intended solely for psychological pressure on the Americans.

Specialists began developing combat missiles for high-power warheads (150 Mt or more), which were reoriented to launch spacecraft: UR-500 (warhead weight 40 tons, practically implemented as a Proton launch vehicle, GRAU index - 8K82), N-1 (warhead weight - 75–95 tons, development was reoriented into a carrier for the lunar program, project brought to the stage of flight design tests and closed in 1976, GRAU index - 11A52), P-56 (GRAU index - 8K67).

Rumors and hoaxes related to AN602

The test results of AN602 became the subject of rumors and hoaxes.

Some publications claimed that the yield of the bomb had reached 120 megatons. This was probably due to the "superimposition" of information about the excess of the actual explosion power over the calculated one by about 20% (in fact, by 14-17%) on the initial design bomb power (100 megatons, more precisely - 101.5 megatons). The Pravda newspaper also added fuel to the fire of such rumors, on the pages of which it was officially stated that “she<АН602>- yesterday atomic weapons. Now even more powerful charges have been created. In fact, the designers considered the possibility of creating more powerful thermonuclear munitions (for example, warhead UR-500 missiles with a capacity of 150 megatons), but further draft designs were not developed. [ ]

AT different time there were rumors that the power of the bomb was reduced by 2 times compared to the planned one, as scientists feared the emergence of a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction involving atmospheric and oceanic hydrogen in the reaction and subsequent oxygen burnout.
(Before the U.S. test of the first atomic bomb, similar fears were expressed about an uncontrolled nuclear reaction in the atmosphere, despite the contradiction of such a possibility to all known information about nuclear reactions. Immediately before the explosion, the young scientist, nervous because of such fears, was removed from the test site on the advice of doctors ). In fact, the detonation of neither the atmosphere nor the ocean is impossible at any power thermonuclear explosion.

There is a rumor about the extremely rapid development of the Tsar Bomba, allegedly it was fully constructed in 112 days after Khrushchev's order at a meeting on July 10, 1961. In fact, the beginning of development is 1956.

This bomb was never some kind of labor gift from the developers of nuclear weapons for the opening of the next party congress, as some authors wrote.

Comments

Notes

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Slipchenko, Viktor Sergeevich. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Materials of a lecture by V. S. Slipchenko given on April 14, 2004 at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for students of the course “The regime of non-proliferation and reduction of weapons of mass destruction and National security»: [ arch. June 11, 2004] / Center for the Study of Disarmament, Energy and Ecology at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. - MIPT, 2004.
Chuprin, Konstantin. Bombs with affectionate names: Domestic aviation has a wide range of thermonuclear weapons: [ arch. November 11, 2005] // Independent military review: gas .. - 2005. - No. 43 (452) (June 10). - [Internet version of the article].
, No. 208. NII-1011 report on the justification of the design and calculations of the RDS-202 product, p. 480-482.
, No. 211. Note by A.P. Zavenyagin and I.S. Konev to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU with the presentation of a draft resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the test program in July-August 1956, p. 484.
Rosatom will show "Kuzkin's mother" at an exhibition in Moscow (Russian). RIA News"(August 15, 2015). Retrieved February 1, 2019. Archived from the original on February 2, 2019.
, No. 192. A note by A. D. Sakharov, Ya. B. Zeldovich and V. A. Davidenko to N. I. Pavlov with an assessment of the parameters of products with a capacity of 150 megatons and one billion tons of TNT, p. 440-441.
Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1954-1964. Draft minutes of meetings. Transcripts. Decrees. / Ch. ed. A. A. Fursenko. - M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2006. - T. 2.: Resolutions. 1954-1958. - 1120 p.:

Adopt a draft resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the preparation and testing of product 202.
Include in the draft resolution items obliging:
a) The Ministry of Medium Machine Building (comrade Zavenyagin) and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR (comrade Zhukov) upon completion preparatory work to test the product 202 to report to the Central Committee of the CPSU on the state of affairs;
b) The Ministry of Medium Machine Building (comrade Zavenyagin) to work out the issue of introducing a special safety stage into the design of product 202, which ensures that the product does not work if the parachute system fails, and report its proposals to the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Instruct tt. Vannikov and Kurchatov final version the text of this decision.
, No. 215. Note by A.P. Zavenyagin, B.L. Vannikov and P.M. Zernov to the Central Committee of the CPSU with the presentation of a draft resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the postponement of the test period for the product "202", p. 492-493.
Anton Volkov. Test charge 50 Mt - "Kuzkina mother" (Russian) (unavailable link). Nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. 2002 by Anton Volkov. Date of treatment September 28, 2012. Archived from the original on October 22, 2009. [ ]
Sakharov, Andrei. Memoirs: [English] ]. - New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. - P. 215–225. - ISBN 0-679-73595-X.
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XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union October 17-31, 1961: Verbatim report. - M.: Politizdat, 1962. - T. 1. - S. 55.
Khokhlov Igor Igorevich. Tsar Bomba (Big Ivan). a thermonuclear device developed in the mid-1950s by a group of physicists led by Academician I. V. Kurchatov. The group included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunov and Yuri Smirnov (Russian). Retrieved April 1, 2019. [ ]

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union exploded the most powerful bomb in the world - the Tsar bomb. This 58-megaton hydrogen bomb was detonated at a test site located on Novaya Zemlya. After the explosion, Nikita Khrushchev liked to joke that it was originally supposed to explode a 100-megaton bomb, but the charge was reduced "so as not to break all the windows in Moscow."

"Tsar Bomba" AN602

Name

The name "Kuzka's mother" appeared under the impression of N. S. Khrushchev's famous statement "We will show America Kuzka's mother!" Officially, the AN602 bomb had no name. In the correspondence for the RN202, the designation "product B" was also used, and AN602 was subsequently called this way (GAU index - "product 602"). At present, all this is sometimes the cause of confusion, since AN602 is mistakenly identified with RDS-37 or (more often) with RN202 (however, the latter identification is partly justified, since AN602 was a modification of RN202). Moreover, as a result, the AN602 retroactively acquired the “hybrid” designation RDS-202 (which neither she nor the RN202 ever wore). The product received the name "Tsar Bomba" as the most powerful and destructive weapon in history.

Development

It is worth noting that the above information about the start date of work is in partial contradiction with the official history of the institute (now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics / RFNC-VNIIEF). According to it, the order to create an appropriate research institute in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR was signed only on April 5, 1955, and work at NII-1011 began a few months later. But in any case, only the final stage of the development of AN602 (already in KB-11 - now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics / RFNC-VNIIEF) in the summer-autumn of 1961 (and by no means the entire project as a whole !) really took 112 days. Nevertheless - AN602 was not just a renamed PH202. A number of structural changes were made to the design of the bomb - as a result of which, for example, its centering changed noticeably. AN602 had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage (the estimated contribution to the explosion power is 1.5 megatons) triggered a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (the contribution to the explosion power is 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the nuclear "Jekyll reaction - Haida (fission of nuclei in blocks of uranium-238 under the action of fast neutrons produced as a result of a thermonuclear fusion reaction) in the third stage (another 50 megatons of power), so that the total estimated power of AN602 was 101.5 megatons.

Test site on the map.

The original version of the bomb was rejected due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination that it was supposed to cause - it was decided not to use the "Jekyll-Hyde reaction" in the third stage of the bomb and replace the uranium components with their lead equivalent. This reduced the estimated total explosion power by almost half (to 51.5 megatons).
The first studies on the "topic 242" began immediately after I. V. Kurchatov's negotiations with A. N. Tupolev (took place in the autumn of 1954), who appointed his deputy for weapons systems A. V. Nadashkevich as the head of the topic. The conducted strength analysis showed that the suspension of such a large concentrated load would require major changes in the power circuit of the original aircraft, in the design of the bomb bay, and in the suspension and ejection devices. In the first half of 1955, the overall and weight drawing of the AN602 was agreed, as well as the layout drawing of its placement. As expected, the mass of the bomb was 15% of the take-off mass of the carrier, but its overall dimensions required the removal of the fuselage fuel tanks. The new beam holder BD7-95-242 (BD-242) developed for the AN602 suspension was similar in design to the BD-206, but much more load-bearing. It had three Der5-6 bomber locks with a carrying capacity of 9 tons each. BD-242 was attached directly to the power longitudinal beams, edging the bomb bay. The problem of controlling the release of the bomb was also successfully solved - the electric automatics ensured the exclusively synchronous opening of all three locks (the need for this was dictated by security conditions).

On March 17, 1956, a joint resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 357-228ss was issued, according to which OKB-156 was to begin converting the Tu-95 into a carrier of high-power nuclear bombs. These works were carried out at the LII MAP (Zhukovsky) from May to September 1956. Then the Tu-95V was accepted by the customer and handed over for flight tests, which were conducted (including dropping the “superbomb” mock-up) under the leadership of Colonel S. M. Kulikov until 1959 and passed without any special remarks. In October 1959, the Dnepropetrovsk crew delivered the Kuzkina Mother to the training ground.

Tests

The carrier of the "superbomb" was created, but its real tests were postponed for political reasons: Khrushchev was going to the USA, and there was a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95V was transferred to the airfield in Uzin, where it was used as a training aircraft and was no longer listed as a combat vehicle. However, in 1961, with the beginning of a new round of the Cold War, the testing of the "superbomb" again became relevant. The Tu-95V was urgently replaced with all the connectors in the electric reset system and the bomb bay doors were removed - a real bomb in terms of mass (26.5 tons, including the weight of the parachute system - 0.8 tons) and dimensions turned out to be slightly larger than the layout (in particular, now its vertical dimension exceeded the dimensions of the bomb bay in height). The aircraft was also covered with a special white reflective paint.

Flash explosion "Tsar-Bomba"

Khrushchev announced the forthcoming tests of a 50-megaton bomb in his report on October 17, 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU.
The bomb tests took place on October 30, 1961. The prepared Tu-95V with a real bomb on board, piloted by a crew consisting of: ship commander A. E. Durnovtsev, navigator I. N. Kleshch, flight engineer V. Ya. Brui, took off from the Olenya airfield and headed for Novaya Zemlya. The Tu-16A laboratory aircraft also participated in the tests.

Mushroom after explosion

2 hours after the takeoff, the bomb was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters on a parachute system on a conditional target within the Dry Nose nuclear test site (73.85, 54.573°51′ N 54°30′ E / 73.85° N 54.5° E (G) (O)). The bomb was detonated barometrically 188 seconds after the release at an altitude of 4200 m above sea level (4000 m above the target) (however, there are other data on the height of the explosion - in particular, the numbers 3700 m above the target (3900 m above sea level) and 4500 m). The carrier aircraft managed to fly a distance of 39 kilometers, and the laboratory aircraft - 53.5 kilometers. The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent. There is also evidence that, according to initial data, the explosion power of AN602 was significantly overestimated and was estimated at up to 75 megatons.

There is a video chronicle of the landing of the aircraft carrying this bomb after the test; the plane was on fire, when viewed after landing, it is clear that some protruding aluminum parts have melted and deformed.

Test results

Explosion AN602 according to the classification was a low air explosion of extra high power. His results were impressive:

The fireball of the explosion reached a radius of approximately 4.6 kilometers. Theoretically, it could grow to the surface of the earth, but this was prevented by a reflected shock wave that crushed and threw the ball off the ground.

The radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away.

Atmospheric ionization caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes

The tangible seismic wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times.

Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion at a distance of a thousand kilometers from its center.

Nuclear mushroom explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers; the diameter of its two-tier "hat" reached (near the upper tier) 95 kilometers

The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dixon Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers. However, sources do not report any destruction or damage to structures, even in those located much closer (280 km) to the landfill, the urban-type settlement of Amderma and the settlement of Belushya Guba.

Consequences of the test

The main goal that was set and achieved by this test was to demonstrate the Soviet Union's possession of an unlimited power weapon of mass destruction - the TNT equivalent of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb tested by that time in the United States was almost four times less than that of AN602.

diameter of total destruction, for clarity, plotted on a map of Paris

An extremely important scientific result was the experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of thermonuclear charges of a multistage type. It was experimentally proved that the maximum power of a thermonuclear charge, in principle, is not limited by anything. So, in the tested copy of the bomb, in order to increase the explosion power by another 50 megatons, it was enough to make the third stage of the bomb (it was the shell of the second stage) not from lead, but from uranium-238, as it was supposed to be on a regular basis. The replacement of the shell material and the lowering of the explosion power were due only to the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not to reduce the weight of the bomb, as is sometimes believed. However, the weight of AN602 really decreased from this, but only slightly - the uranium shell should have weighed about 2800 kg, while the lead shell of the same volume - based on the lower density of lead - about 1700 kg. The resulting lightening of just over one ton is hardly noticeable with a total mass of AN602 of at least 24 tons (even if we take the most modest estimate) and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation.

It cannot be argued that "the explosion was one of the cleanest in the history of atmospheric nuclear tests" - the first stage of the bomb was a 1.5 megaton uranium charge, which in itself provided a large amount of radioactive fallout. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that for a nuclear explosive device of such power, AN602 was indeed quite clean - more than 97% of the explosion power was produced by a thermonuclear fusion reaction that practically did not create radioactive contamination.
Also, a discussion about ways to politically apply technology to create super-powerful nuclear warheads served as the beginning of the ideological differences between N. S. Khrushchev and A. D. Sakharov, since Nikita Sergeevich did not accept Andrei Dmitrievich’s project to deploy several dozen super-powerful nuclear warheads, with a capacity of 200 or even 500 megatons, along the American maritime borders, which made it possible to sober up neoconservative circles without being drawn into a ruinous arms race

Rumors and hoaxes related to AN602

The results of the AN602 tests became the subject of a number of other rumors and hoaxes. Thus, it was sometimes claimed that the power of the bomb explosion reached 120 megatons. This was probably due to the "imposition" of information about the excess of the actual explosion power over the calculated one by about 20% (in fact, by 14-17%) on the initial design bomb power (100 megatons, more precisely - 101.5 megatons). The Pravda newspaper added fuel to the fire of such rumors, on the pages of which it was officially stated that “She<АН602>- yesterday's day of atomic weapons. Even more powerful charges have now been created.” In fact, more powerful thermonuclear munitions - for example, the warhead for the UR-500 ICBM (GRAU index 8K82; the famous Proton launch vehicle is its modification) with a capacity of 150 megatons, although they were really developed, but remained on the drawing boards.

At various times, rumors also circulated that the power of the bomb was reduced by 2 times compared to the planned one, as scientists feared the emergence of a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere. Interestingly, similar fears (only about the possibility of a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction occurring in the atmosphere) have already been expressed earlier - in preparation for testing the first atomic bomb within the Manhattan Project. Then these fears reached the point that one of the worried scientists was not only removed from the tests, but also sent to the care of doctors.
Fantasists and physicists also expressed fears (generated mainly by the science fiction of those years - this topic often appeared in the books of Alexander Kazantsev, so in his book Faety it was stated that the hypothetical planet Phaeton died in this way, from which the asteroid belt remained) that the explosion could initiate a thermonuclear reaction sea water, containing some deuterium, and thus cause the oceans to explode, which will split the planet into pieces.

Similar fears, however, in a joking manner, were expressed by the hero of science fiction books by Yuri Tupitsyn, the star pilot Klim Zhdan:
“Returning to Earth, I always worry. Is she there? Did scientists, carried away by another promising experiment, turn it into a cloud of cosmic dust or a plasma nebula?

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet AN606 thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 57 megatons was successfully tested at the Novaya Zemlya test site. This power was 10 times higher than the total power of all ammunition that was used during the Second World War. AN606 is the most destructive weapon throughout the history of mankind.

Place

Nuclear testing in the Soviet Union began in 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. Its area was 18500 sq. km. He was removed from places permanent residence people. But not so much that it would be possible to test the most powerful weapon on it. Therefore, in Kazakh steppe detonated nuclear charges of low and medium power. They were necessary for debugging nuclear technologies, studying the influence damaging factors for equipment and facilities. That is, they were, first of all, scientific and technical tests.

But in the conditions of military competition, such tests were also necessary, in which the emphasis was placed on their political component, on demonstrating the crushing power of the Soviet bomb.

There was also a Totsky training ground in Orenburg region. But it was smaller than Semipalatinsk. And besides, it was located in even more dangerous proximity to cities and villages.

In 1954, they found a place where it was possible to test super-high-yield nuclear weapons.

This place was the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. He fully met the requirements for the test site where the super-bomb was to be tested. It was maximally removed from large settlements and communications, and after its closure, it was supposed to have a minimal impact on the subsequent economic activity of the region. It was also required to conduct a study of the effect of a nuclear explosion on ships and submarines.

Islands of Novaya Zemlya the best way meet these and other requirements. Their area was more than four times larger than the Semipalatinsk test site and equaled 85 thousand square meters. km., which is approximately equal to the area of the Netherlands.

The problem of the population that could suffer from explosions was solved radically: 298 native Nenets were evicted from the archipelago, providing them with housing in Arkhangelsk, as well as in the village of Amderma and on Kolguev Island. At the same time, the migrants were employed, and the elderly were given a pension, despite the fact that they had no seniority.

They were replaced by builders.

The nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya is by no means an open field onto which bombers drop their deadly cargo, but whole complex complex engineering structures and administrative services. These include the experimental scientific and engineering service, energy and water supply services, a fighter aviation regiment, a transport aviation detachment, a division of ships and vessels special purpose, emergency rescue team, communications center, logistics units, living quarters.

Three test sites were created at the site: Chernaya Guba, Matochkin Shar and Dry Nose.

In the summer of 1954, 10 construction battalions were delivered to the archipelago, which began to build the first site - Black Guba. The builders spent the Arctic winter in canvas tents, preparing Guba for the underwater explosion scheduled for September 1955 - the first in the USSR.

Product

The development of the Tsar Bomba, which received the index AN602, began simultaneously with the construction of the test site on Novaya Zemlya - in 1955. And it ended with the creation of a bomb ready for testing in September 1961, that is, a month before the explosion.

Development began at NII-1011 Minsredmash (now the All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics, VNIITF), which was located in Snezhinsk Chelyabinsk region. Actually, the institute was founded on May 5, 1955, primarily for the implementation of a grandiose thermonuclear project. And only then his activities extended to the creation of 70 percent of all Soviet nuclear bombs, missiles and torpedoes.

NII-1011 headed scientific director Institute Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Shchelkin, together with a group of nuclear luminaries, took part in the creation and testing of the first atomic bomb RDS-1. It was he who, in 1949, was the last to leave the tower with the charge installed in it, sealed the entrance and pressed the "Start" button.

Work on the creation of the AN602 bomb, to which the leading physicists of the country, including Kurchatov and Sakharov, were connected, proceeded without any special complications. But the unique power of the bomb required huge amounts of calculations and design studies. As well as conducting experiments with smaller charges at the test site - first at Semipalatinsk, and then at Novaya Zemlya.

The initial project involved the creation of a bomb that would certainly break glass, if not in Moscow, but certainly in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, and even in northern Finland. Because a capacity in excess of 100 megatons was planned.

Initially, the scheme of action of the bomb was three-link. At first, a plutonium charge with a capacity of 1.5 Mt worked. He set fire to a thermonuclear fusion reaction, the power of which was equal to 50 Mt. Fast neutrons released as a result of a thermonuclear reaction triggered a nuclear fission reaction in blocks of uranium-238. The contribution of this reaction to the "common cause" was 50 Mt.

This arrangement led to extremely high level radioactive contamination over a vast area. And there was no need to talk about the “minimal impact of the landfill on the subsequent economic activity of the region after its closure”. Therefore, it was decided to abandon the final phase - the fission of uranium. But at the same time, the real power of the resulting bomb turned out to be a little more than it was based on the calculations. Instead of 51.5 Mt, on October 30, 1961, 57 Mt exploded on Novaya Zemlya.

The creation of the AN602 bomb was completed not in Snezhinsk, but in the famous KB-11, located in Arzamas-16. The final revision took 112 days.

The result was a monster weighing 26500 kg, 800 cm long and with a maximum diameter of 210 cm.

The dimensions and weight of the bomb were already determined in 1955. In order to lift it into the air, it was necessary to significantly modernize the largest Tu-95 bomber at that time. And this was also not an easy job, since the standard Tu-95 could not lift the Tsar Bomba into the air, with an aircraft weight of 84 tons, it could only take 11 tons of combat load. 90 tons were assigned to the share of fuel. In addition, the bomb did not fit in the bomb bay. Therefore, the fuselage fuel tanks had to be removed. And also replace the beam holders of the bomb with more powerful ones.

Work on the modernization of the bomber, called the Tu-95 V and made in a single copy, took place from 1956 to 1958. Flight tests continued for another year, during which the technique of dropping a mock-up bomb of the same weight and the same dimensions was worked out. In 1959, the aircraft was recognized as fully meeting the requirements for it.

Result

The main result, as it was intended - political - exceeded all expectations. The thundering explosion of a previously unknown force made a very strong impression on the leaders Western countries. He forced to take a more serious look at the capabilities of the Soviet military-industrial complex and somewhat reduce their militaristic ambitions.

The events of October 30, 1961 developed as follows. Early in the morning, two bombers took off from a remote airfield - Tu-95V with the AN602 product on board and Tu-16 with research equipment and film and photographic equipment.

At 11:32, from a height of 10,500 meters, the commander of the Tu-95 V, Major Andrey Egorovich Durnovtsev, dropped a bomb. The major returned to the airfield as a lieutenant colonel and Hero of the Soviet Union.

The bomb, having parachuted down to a level of 3700 meters, exploded. By this time, the planes managed to get away from the epicenter by 39 kilometers.

The test leaders are the Minister of Medium Machine Building E.P. Slavsky and the Commander-in-Chief missile forces Marshal K.S. Moskalenko - at the time of the explosion they were on board the Il-14 at a distance of more than 500 kilometers. Despite the cloudy weather, they saw a bright flash. At the same time, the aircraft was clearly shaken by the shock wave. The minister and marshal immediately sent a telegram to Khrushchev.

One of the groups of researchers from a distance of 270 kilometers from the point of explosion saw not only a bright flash through protective tinted glasses, but even felt the impact of a light pulse. In an abandoned village - 400 kilometers from the epicenter - were destroyed wooden houses, and the stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors.

The mushroom from the explosion reached a height of 68 kilometers. At the same time, the shock wave, reflected from the ground, prevented the plasma ball from descending to the ground, which would incinerate everything in a vast space.

The various effects were monstrous. A seismic wave circled the globe three times. The light radiation was capable of causing third-degree burns at a distance of 100 km. The roar from the explosion was heard within a radius of 800 km. Due to the ionizing effect in Europe, interference was observed in radio communications for more than an hour. For the same reason, communication with the two bombers was lost for 30 minutes.

The test turned out to be surprisingly clean. Radioactive radiation within a radius of three kilometers from the epicenter two hours after the explosion was only 1 milliroentgen per hour.

The Tu-95 V, despite the fact that it was 39 kilometers from the epicenter, was dropped by a shock wave at a peak. And the pilot was able to regain control of the aircraft, only losing 800 meters of altitude. The entire bomber, including propellers, was painted with white reflective paint. But upon inspection, it was found that fragmentary paint burned out. And some structural elements even melted and deformed.

In conclusion, it should be noted that a 100-megaton filling could also fit in the AN602 case.

More than 55 years ago, on October 30, 1961, one of the most significant events happened cold war. At the test site located on Novaya Zemlya, the Soviet Union tested the most powerful thermonuclear device in the history of mankind - a hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 58 megatons of TNT. Officially, this ammunition was called AN602 (“product 602”), but it entered the historical annals under its unofficial name - “Tsar Bomba”.

This bomb has another name - "Kuzkin's mother." It was born after the famous speech of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Khrushchev, during which he promised to show the United States "Kuzkin's mother" and pounded his shoe on the podium.

The best Soviet physicists worked on the creation of "product 602": Sakharov, Trutnev, Adamsky, Babaev, Smirnov. This project was led by academician Kurchatov, work on the creation of the bomb began in 1954.

The Soviet "Tsar Bomba" was dropped from a Tu-95 strategic bomber, which had been specially converted for the mission. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 3.7 thousand meters. Seismographs around the world recorded the strongest fluctuations, and the blast wave circled the globe three times. The explosion of the Tsar Bomba seriously frightened the West, and showed that it is better not to mess with the Soviet Union. A powerful propaganda effect was achieved, and the capabilities of Soviet nuclear weapons were clearly demonstrated to a potential adversary.

But the most important was something else: the tests of the Tsar Bomba made it possible to test the theoretical calculations of scientists, and it was proved that the power of thermonuclear munitions is practically unlimited.

And, by the way, it was true. After the successful tests, Khrushchev joked that they wanted to blow up 100 megatons, but were afraid to break the windows in Moscow. Indeed, initially they planned to undermine the hundred-megaton charge, but then they did not want to cause too much damage to the test site.

The history of the creation of the Tsar bomb

Since the mid-1950s, work began in the USA and the USSR on the creation of a second-generation nuclear weapon - a thermonuclear bomb. In November 1952, the United States blew up the first such device, and eight months later the Soviet Union conducted similar tests. At the same time, the Soviet thermonuclear bomb was much more perfect than its own. American counterpart, it was quite possible to fit it into the bomb bay of the aircraft and use it in practice. Thermonuclear weapons were ideally suited for the implementation of the Soviet concept of single, but deadly strikes against the enemy, because theoretically the power of thermonuclear charges is unlimited.

In the early 60s, the USSR began to develop huge (if not monstrous) nuclear charges in terms of power. In particular, it was planned to create missiles with a thermonuclear warhead weighing 40 and 75 tons. The explosion power of a forty-ton warhead was to be 150 megatons. In parallel, work was underway on the creation of heavy-duty aviation munitions. However, the development of such "monsters" required practical tests, during which the bombing technique would be worked out, the damage from explosions would be assessed, and, most importantly, the theoretical calculations of physicists would be tested.

In general, it should be noted that before the advent of reliable intercontinental ballistic missiles, the problem of delivering nuclear charges was very acute in the USSR. There was a project of a huge self-propelled torpedo with a powerful thermonuclear charge (about a hundred megatons), which they planned to undermine off the coast of the United States. A special submarine was designed to launch this torpedo. According to the developers, the explosion was supposed to cause a strong tsunami and flood the most important US metropolitan areas located on the coast. Academician Sakharov supervised the project, but for technical reasons it was never implemented.

Initially, the NII-1011 (Chelyabinsk-70, now RFNC-VNIITF) was engaged in the development of a super-powerful nuclear bomb. At this stage, the ammunition was called RN-202, but in 1958 the project was closed by the decision of the country's top leadership. There is a legend that "Kuzkina's mother" was developed by Soviet scientists in record time - only 112 days. It doesn't quite match really. Although, indeed, the final stage of creating ammunition, which took place in KB-11, took only 112 days. But it would not be entirely correct to say that the Tsar Bomba is just a renamed and completed RN-202, in fact, significant improvements were made to the design of the ammunition.

Initially, the capacity of AN602 was supposed to be more than 100 megatons, and its design should have three stages. But due to the significant radioactive contamination of the explosion site, they decided to abandon the third stage, which reduced the power of the ammunition by almost half (to 50 megatons).

Another serious problem that the developers of the Tsar Bomba project had to solve was the preparation of a carrier aircraft for this unique and non-standard nuclear charge, since the serial Tu-95 was not suitable for this mission. This issue was raised back in 1954 in a conversation that took place between two academicians - Kurchatov and Tupolev.

After the drawings of the thermonuclear bomb were made, it turned out that the placement of the ammunition required a serious alteration of the aircraft's bomb bay. The fuselage tanks were removed from the car, and for the AN602 suspension, a new beam holder was installed on the aircraft with a much higher carrying capacity and three bomber locks instead of one. The new bomber received the index "B".

To ensure the safety of the aircraft crew, the Tsar Bomba was equipped with three parachutes at once: exhaust, brake and main. They slowed down the fall of the bomb, allowing the aircraft to fly back to a safe distance after being dropped.

The re-equipment of the aircraft for dropping the superbomb began as early as 1956. In the same year, the aircraft was accepted by the customer and tested. From the Tu-95V they even dropped the exact model of the future bomb.

On October 17, 1961, Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the XX Congress of the CPSU announced that the USSR was successfully testing a new super-powerful nuclear weapon, and a 50-megaton munition would soon be ready. Khrushchev also said that the Soviet Union also has a 100 megaton bomb, but is not going to blow it up yet. A few days later, the UN General Assembly asked the Soviet government not to test a new mega-bomb, but this call was not heard.

Description of the design of AN602

The AN602 aerial bomb is a cylindrical body of a characteristic streamlined shape with tail stabilizers. Its length is 8 meters, the maximum diameter is 2.1 meters, and it weighs 26.5 tons. The dimensions of this bomb completely repeat the dimensions of the RN-202 ammunition.

The initial design power of the bomb was 100 megatons, but then it was reduced by almost half. The Tsar Bomba was conceived as a three-stage one: the first stage was a nuclear charge (power of the order of 1.5 megatons), it launched a second-stage thermonuclear reaction (50 megatons), which, in turn, initiated a third-stage Jekyll-Hyde nuclear reaction (also 50 megatons). However, the explosion of a munition of this design was almost guaranteed to lead to significant radioactive contamination of the test site, so they decided to abandon the third stage. The uranium in it was replaced by lead.

Carrying out tests of the Tsar bomb and their results

Despite the modernization carried out earlier, immediately before the tests themselves, the aircraft still had to be redone. Together with the parachute system, the real ammunition turned out to be larger and heavier than planned. Therefore, the bomb bay doors had to be removed from the aircraft. In addition, it was pre-painted with white reflective paint.

On October 30, 1961, a Tu-95V with a bomb on board took off from the Olenya airfield and headed towards the test site on Novaya Zemlya. The crew of the bomber consisted of nine people. The Tu-95A laboratory aircraft also took part in the tests.

The bomb was dropped two hours after takeoff at an altitude of 10.5 thousand meters above a mock target located on the territory of the Dry Nose training ground. Undermining was carried out barothermally at an altitude of 4.2 thousand meters (according to other sources, at an altitude of 3.9 thousand meters or 4.5 thousand meters). parachute system slowed down the fall of the ammunition, so it took 188 seconds to reach the estimated height of the A602. During this time, the carrier aircraft managed to move away from the epicenter by 39 km. The shock wave caught up with the plane at a distance of 115 km, but he managed to continue his flight and safely returned to base. According to some sources, the Tsar Bomba explosion came out much more powerful than planned (58.6 or even 75 megatons).

The test results exceeded all expectations. After the explosion, a fireball with a diameter of more than nine kilometers was formed, the nuclear mushroom reached a height of 67 km, and the diameter of its "cap" was 97 km. Light radiation could cause burns at a distance of 100 km, and sound wave reached Dikson Island, located 800 km east of Novaya Zemlya. The seismic wave generated by the explosion circled the globe three times. However, the tests did not lead to significant contamination. environment. Scientists landed at the epicenter point two hours after the explosion.

After the tests, the commander and navigator of the Tu-95V aircraft were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, eight employees of KB-11 received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and several dozen more scientists from the design bureau received Lenin Prizes.

During the tests, all pre-planned goals were achieved. Theoretical calculations of scientists were tested, the military gained experience in the practical use of unprecedented weapons, and the country's leadership received a powerful foreign policy and propaganda trump card. It was clearly shown that the Soviet Union could achieve parity with the United States in the lethality of nuclear weapons.

The A602 bomb was not originally intended for practical military use. In fact, it was a demonstrator of the capabilities of the Soviet military industry. The Tu-95V simply could not fly with such a combat load to the territory of the United States - it simply would not have enough fuel. But, nevertheless, the tests of the Tsar Bomba produced the desired result in the West - two years later, in August 1963, in Moscow, an agreement was signed between the USSR, Great Britain and the USA banning nuclear tests in space, on the ground or under water. Since then, only underground nuclear explosions have been carried out. In 1990, the USSR announced a unilateral moratorium on all nuclear tests. Until now, Russia has followed it.

By the way, after the successful test of the Tsar Bomba, Soviet scientists put forward several proposals for the creation of even more powerful thermonuclear munitions, from 200 to 500 megatons, but they were never implemented. The main opponents of such plans were the military. The reason was simple: such a weapon did not have the slightest practical meaning. The explosion of A602 created a zone of complete destruction, equal in area to the territory of Paris, why create even more powerful ammunition. In addition, they simply did not have the necessary means of delivery, nor strategic aviation, nor ballistic missiles At that time, they simply could not lift such a weight.

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