An 602 thermonuclear aerial bomb. Views of the "kuzkina mother"

More than 55 years ago, on October 30, 1961, one of the most significant events of the Cold War happened. 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 second-generation nuclear weapons - 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 advanced than its American counterpart, it could well be placed in the bomb bay of an aircraft and used 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. short 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 the new mega-bomb, but this call was not heeded.

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). The 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 the 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 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. The theoretical calculations of scientists were tested, the military gained experience in the practical use of previously unseen 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 the ballistic missiles of that time simply could not lift such a weight.

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55 years ago, on October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union tested at the Novaya Zemlya test site (Arkhangelsk region) the most powerful thermonuclear device in the world - an experimental aviation hydrogen bomb with a capacity of about 58 megatons of TNT ("product 602"; unofficial names: "Tsar -bomb", "Kuzkin's mother"). The thermonuclear charge was dropped from a converted Tu-95 strategic bomber and detonated at an altitude of 3.7 thousand meters above the ground.

Nuclear (atomic) weapons are based on an uncontrolled chain reaction of fission of heavy atomic nuclei.

To carry out a fission chain reaction, either uranium-235 or plutonium-239 (less often uranium-233) is used. Thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) involve the use of the energy of an uncontrolled nuclear fusion reaction, that is, the transformation of light elements into heavier ones (for example, two "heavy hydrogen" atoms, deuterium, into one helium atom). Thermonuclear weapons have a higher explosive yield than conventional nuclear bombs.

Development of thermonuclear weapons in the USSR

In the USSR, the development of thermonuclear weapons began in the late 1940s. Andrei Sakharov, Yuli Khariton, Igor Tamm and other scientists at Design Bureau No. 11 (KB-11, known as Arzamas-16; now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, RFNC-VNIIEF; city of Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod region.) . In 1949, the first draft of a thermonuclear weapon was developed. First Soviet H-bomb RDS-6 with a capacity of 400 kilotons was tested on August 12, 1953 at the Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakh SSR, now Kazakhstan). Unlike the United States, which tested the first Ivy Mike thermonuclear explosive device on November 1, 1952, the RDS-6s was a complete bomber capable of being delivered by a bomber. Ivy Mike weighed 73.8 tons and was more like a small factory in size, but the power of its explosion was at that time a record 10.4 megatons.

"Tsar-torpedo"

In the early 1950s, when it became clear that a thermonuclear charge was the most promising in terms of explosive energy, a discussion began in the USSR about the method of its delivery. Missile weapons at that time was imperfect; the USSR Air Force did not have bombers capable of delivering heavy charges.

Therefore, on September 12, 1952, the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, signed a decree "On the design and construction of object 627" - a submarine with a nuclear power plant. Initially, it was assumed that it would be the carrier of a torpedo with a thermonuclear charge T-15 with a capacity of up to 100 megatons, the main target of which would be enemy naval bases and port cities. The main developer of the torpedo was Andrey Sakharov.

Subsequently, in his book "Memoirs", the scientist wrote that Rear Admiral Pyotr Fomin, who was in charge of the project 627 from the side of the fleet, was shocked by the "cannibalistic nature" of the T-15. According to Sakharov, Fomin told him "that naval sailors are accustomed to fighting an armed enemy in open combat" and that for him "the very thought of such a massacre is disgusting." Subsequently, this conversation influenced Sakharov's decision to engage in human rights activities. The T-15 was never put into service due to unsuccessful tests in the mid-1950s, and the Project 627 submarine received conventional, non-nuclear torpedoes.

Projects of super-powerful charges

The decision to create an aviation super-powerful thermonuclear charge was made by the government of the USSR in November 1955. Initially, the bomb was developed by the Scientific Research Institute No. Academician E. I. Zababakhin, RFNC-VNIITF, city of Snezhinsk, Chelyabinsk region).

Since the end of 1955, under the guidance of the chief designer of the institute, Kirill Shchelkin, work has been carried out on "product 202" (design capacity - about 30 megatons). However, in 1958, the top leadership of the country closed work in this direction.

Two years later, on July 10, 1961, at a meeting with the developers and creators of nuclear weapons, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev announced the decision of the country's leadership to start developing and testing a hydrogen bomb of 100 megatons. The work was entrusted to employees of KB-11. Under the leadership of Andrei Sakharov, a group of theoretical physicists developed the "product 602" (AN-602). For him, a case already made at NII-1011 was used.

Characteristics of the "Tsar bomb"

The bomb was a ballistic streamlined body with a tail.

The dimensions of the "product 602" were the same as those of the "product 202". Length - 8 m, diameter - 2.1 m, weight - 26.5 tons.

The estimated power of the charge was 100 megatons of TNT. But after experts assessed the impact of such an explosion on the environment, it was decided to test a bomb with a reduced charge.

The heavy strategic bomber Tu-95, which received the "B" index, was reequipped to transport the aerial bomb. Due to the impossibility of placing it in the bomb bay of the machine, a special suspension device was developed to ensure that the bomb was lifted to the fuselage and fixed on three synchronously controlled locks.

The safety of the crew of the carrier aircraft was ensured by a specially designed system of several parachutes near the bomb: exhaust, braking and the main area of 1.6 thousand square meters. m. They were ejected from the rear of the hull one by one, slowing down the fall of the bomb (up to a speed of about 20-25 m / s). During this time, the Tu-95V managed to fly away from the explosion site to a safe distance.

The leadership of the USSR did not hide the intention to test a powerful thermonuclear device. On October 17, 1961, at the opening of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev announced the forthcoming test: I want to say that tests of new nuclear weapons are also going very successfully. We will complete these tests soon. Apparently at the end of October. In conclusion, we will probably detonate a hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 million tons of TNT. We said that we have a bomb of 100 million tons of TNT. And that's right. But we will not detonate such a bomb."

On October 27, 1961, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in which it called on the USSR to refrain from testing a super-powerful bomb.

Trial

The test of the experimental "product 602" took place on October 30, 1961 at the Novaya Zemlya test site. Tu-95V with a crew of nine (lead pilot - Andrey Durnovtsev, lead navigator - Ivan Kleshch) took off from the Olenya military airfield to Kola Peninsula. The air bomb was dropped from a height of 10.5 km onto the site of the Northern Island of the archipelago, in the area of the Matochkin Shar Strait. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 3.7 km from the ground and 4.2 km above sea level, for 188 seconds. after the separation of the bomb from the bomber.

The flash lasted 65-70 seconds. "Nuclear mushroom" rose to a height of 67 km, the diameter of the red-hot dome reached 20 km. The cloud retained its shape for a long time and was visible at a distance of several hundred kilometers. Despite continuous cloudiness, the light flash was observed at a distance of more than 1000 km. The shock wave circled the globe three times, due to electromagnetic radiation for 40-50 minutes. radio communication was interrupted for many hundreds of kilometers from the test site. The radioactive contamination in the area of the epicenter turned out to be small (1 milliroentgen per hour), so the research personnel were able to work there without health hazard 2 hours after the explosion.

According to experts, the power of the superbomb was about 58 megatons of TNT. It's about three thousand times more powerful atomic bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima in 1945 (13 kilotons).

The shooting of the test was carried out both from the ground and from the Tu-95V, which at the time of the explosion had managed to retreat to a distance of more than 45 km, as well as from the Il-14 aircraft (at the time of the explosion it was at a distance of 55 km). At the latter, Marshal of the Soviet Union Kirill Moskalenko and Minister of Medium Machine Building of the USSR Efim Slavsky watched the tests.

World reaction to the Soviet superbomb

The demonstration by the Soviet Union of the possibility of creating thermonuclear charges of unlimited power pursued the goal of establishing parity in nuclear tests, primarily with the United States.

After lengthy negotiations, on August 5, 1963 in Moscow, representatives of the USA, the USSR and Great Britain signed the Treaty on the Ban on Nuclear Weapons Tests in Outer Space, Under Water and on the Surface of the Earth. Since its entry into force, the USSR has carried out only underground nuclear tests. The last explosion was carried out on October 24, 1990 at Novaya Zemlya, after which the Soviet Union announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. Russia is currently following this moratorium.

Creator Awards

In 1962, for the successful testing of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb, the crew members of the carrier aircraft Andrei Durnovtsev and Ivan Kleshch were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Eight employees of KB-11 were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (of which Andrei Sakharov received it for the third time), 40 employees became laureates of the Lenin Prize.

"Tsar bomb" in museums

Full-size models of the Tsar Bomba (without control systems and warheads) are stored in the RFNC-VNIIEF museums in Sarov (the first national museum of nuclear weapons; opened in 1992) and RFNC-VNIITF in Snezhinsk.

In September 2015, the Sarov bomb was exhibited at the Moscow exhibition "70 Years of the Nuclear Industry. Chain reaction success" in the Central Manege.

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 famous saying N. S. Khrushchev “We will show America Kuzkin’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 AH602 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

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 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 formed 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 extremely high level 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 the negotiations between I. V. Kurchatov and 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 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 it dimensions demanded 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 nuclear bombs high power. 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 carried out (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 in cold war there was a pause. 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. On the Tu-95V, they urgently replaced all the connectors in the electric reset system and removed the bomb bay doors - a real bomb in terms of mass (26.5 tons, including the weight parachute system- 0.8 tons) and the 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 reflective paint. white color.

Flash explosion "Tsar-Bomba"

Khrushchev announced the upcoming tests of the 50-megaton bomb in his report on October 17, 1961 at XXII congress e CPSU.
The bomb tests took place on October 30, 1961. A 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

Sound wave, generated by the explosion, reached Dikson 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 was achieved by this test was to demonstrate the possession of the Soviet Union with weapons unlimited in power. 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 the 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 raise 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 reduction in the power of the explosion were due only to the desire to reduce the number of radioactive fallout, and not the desire 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, 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 became 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 number 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, the discussion about the ways of political application of the technology of creating 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 American maritime borders, which made it possible to sober up neo-conservative 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 "overlay" 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 atomic weapons. Even more powerful charges have now been created.” In fact, more powerful thermonuclear munitions - for example, 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, they remained on the drawing boards.

AT different time 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 in the atmosphere) have already been expressed earlier - in preparation for testing the first atomic bomb as part of 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.
Fantasts and physicists also expressed fears (generated mainly by 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 most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind was detonated on Novaya Zemlya.

More powerful, more powerful...

At the beginning of the "atomic age", the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a race not only in the number of atomic bombs, but also in their power.

The USSR, which acquired atomic weapons later than its competitor, sought to equalize the situation by creating more advanced and more powerful devices.

The development of a thermonuclear device codenamed "Ivan" was started in the mid-1950s by a group of physicists led by academician Kurchatov. The group involved in this project included Andrey Sakharov,Victor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunov and Yuri Smirnov.

During research work scientists also tried to find the limits of the maximum power of a thermonuclear explosive device.

Design studies lasted for several years, and the final stage of development of the "product 602" fell on 1961 and took 112 days.

The AN602 bomb 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 so-called nuclear " the Jekyll-Hyde reaction” (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.

However, the original version was rejected, since in this form the bomb explosion would have caused extremely powerful radiation pollution (which, however, according to calculations, would still be seriously inferior to that caused by much less powerful American devices).

"Product 602"

In the end, 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).

Another limitation for developers was the capabilities of aircraft. The first version of a bomb weighing 40 tons was rejected by aircraft designers from the Tupolev Design Bureau - the carrier aircraft could not deliver such a load to the target.

As a result, the parties reached a compromise - nuclear scientists reduced the weight of the bomb by half, and aviation designers prepared for it a special modification of the Tu-95 bomber - Tu-95V.

It turned out that it would not be possible to place a charge in the bomb bay under any circumstances, so the Tu-95V had to carry the AN602 to the target on a special external sling.

In fact, the carrier aircraft was ready in 1959, but the nuclear physicists were instructed not to force work on the bomb - just at that moment there were signs of a decrease in tension in international relations in the world.

In early 1961, however, the situation escalated again, and the project was revived.

Time for "Mother Kuzma"

The final weight of the bomb, together with the parachute system, was 26.5 tons. The product turned out to have several names at once - “ Big Ivan”,“ Tsar Bomba ”and“ Kuzkina mother ”. The latter stuck to the bomb after the speech of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev before the Americans, in which he promised them to show "Kuzkin's mother."

The fact that the Soviet Union was planning to test a super-powerful thermonuclear charge in the near future was quite openly told by Khrushchev to foreign diplomats in 1961. On October 17, 1961, the Soviet leader announced the upcoming tests in a report at the XXII Party Congress.

The test site was the Dry Nose test site on Novaya Zemlya. Preparations for the explosion were completed in the last days of October 1961.

The Tu-95V carrier aircraft was based at the airfield in Vaenga. Here, in a special room, the final preparation for the tests was carried out.

On the morning of October 30, 1961, the crew pilot Andrey Durnovtsev received an order to fly to the area of the test site and drop the bomb.

Taking off from the airfield in Vaenga, the Tu-95V reached the calculated point two hours later. A bomb on a parachute system was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters, after which the pilots immediately began to withdraw the car from the dangerous area.

At 11:33 Moscow time, an explosion was made above the target at an altitude of 4 km.

There was Paris - and there is no Paris

The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent.

Witnesses of the test say that they have never seen anything like it in their lives. The nuclear mushroom explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers, light radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns at a distance of up to 100 kilometers.

Observers reported that at the epicenter of the explosion, the rocks took on a surprisingly even shape, and the earth turned into a kind of military parade ground. Complete destruction was achieved on an area equal to the territory of Paris.

Atmospheric ionization caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes. The lack of radio communication convinced the scientists that the tests went well. The shock wave resulting from the explosion of the Tsar Bomba circled the globe three times. The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dixon Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers.

Despite heavy cloud cover, witnesses saw the explosion even at a distance of thousands of kilometers and could describe it.

The radioactive contamination from the explosion turned out to be minimal, as the developers had planned - more than 97% of the explosion power was produced by a thermonuclear fusion reaction that practically did not create radioactive contamination.

This allowed scientists to start studying the test results on the experimental field two hours after the explosion.

Sakharov's "cannibalistic" project

The explosion of the Tsar Bomba really made an impression on the whole world. It turned out to be four times more powerful than the most powerful American bomb.

There was a theoretical possibility of creating even more powerful charges, but it was decided to abandon the implementation of such projects.

Oddly enough, the main skeptics were the military. From their point of view, the practical meaning similar weapons didn't have. How would you order him to be delivered to the "enemy's lair"? The USSR already had missiles, but they could not fly to America with such a load.

Strategic bombers were also unable to fly to the United States with such a "luggage". In addition, they became an easy target for air defense systems.

Atomic scientists turned out to be much more enthusiastic. Plans were put forward to place several superbombs with a capacity of 200-500 megatons off the coast of the United States, the explosion of which was supposed to cause a giant tsunami that would wash America into literally the words.

Academician Andrei Sakharov, future human rights activist and laureate Nobel Prize peace, put forward another plan. “The carrier can be a large torpedo launched from a submarine. I fantasized that it was possible to develop for such a torpedo a direct-flow water-steam atomic jet engine. The target of an attack from a distance of several hundred kilometers should be the ports of the enemy. The war at sea is lost if the ports are destroyed, the sailors assure us of this. The body of such a torpedo can be very durable, it will not be afraid of mines and obstacle nets. Of course, the destruction of ports - both by a surface explosion of a torpedo with a 100-megaton charge that jumped out of the water, and an underwater explosion - is inevitably associated with very large human casualties, ”the scientist wrote in his memoirs.

Sakharov spoke about his idea Vice Admiral Pyotr Fomin. An experienced sailor, who headed the "atomic department" under the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, was horrified by the scientist's plan, calling the project "cannibalistic". According to Sakharov, he was ashamed and never returned to this idea.

Scientists and the military received generous awards for the successful testing of the Tsar Bomba, but the very idea of super-powerful thermonuclear charges began to become a thing of the past.

The designers of nuclear weapons focused on things less spectacular, but much more effective.

And the explosion of the "Tsar Bomba" to this day remains the most powerful of those that have ever been produced by mankind.

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 an absolute superiority over the USSR in nuclear weapons. Although thermonuclear charges had already been created in the USSR by that time, they did not have the necessary diversity. Also, there were no effective means of delivering nuclear charges to the United States, both in the 1950s and in 1961. The real possibility of retaliation nuclear strike in the USA, the USSR did not have.

In addition to foreign policy and propaganda considerations - to respond to US nuclear blackmail - the creation of the Tsar Bomba fit into the concept 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 of nuclear equilibrium.

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

The development of a super-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 decree of the Council of Ministers, it 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 (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- Haida "(fission of nuclei in blocks of uranium-238 under the action of fast neutrons formed 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.

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 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 carried out (including dropping the "super bomb" 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 the connectors in the reset electric 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 takeoff 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 UTC (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 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 exclusively 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 "overlay" 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's day of 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, the warhead of the UR-500 missile with a capacity of 150 megatons), but they did not develop further draft designs. [ ]

At various times, 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 first atomic bomb was tested in the United States, similar fears were expressed about the occurrence of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction in the atmosphere, despite the contradiction of such a possibility to all known information about nuclear reactions. Immediately before that 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 for any power of a 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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, 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.
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, 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.
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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 of the preparatory work for testing product 202, 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 the final version of the text of this resolution.
, 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.
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