New Earth hydrogen bomb explosion. Testing a hydrogen bomb, aka “Kuzka’s mother”

Panic covered not only the “decaying West”, but also Soviet scientists, horrified by what they had done. “Tsar Bomba”, aka “Kuzka’s Mother”, aka “Ivan”, aka “Product 602”, still remains the most powerful explosive device that humanity has ever experienced.

It took seven long years of research, design and development to wipe the noses of the capitalists terrible weapon. The creation of a hitherto unprecedented 100-megaton superbomb (for comparison: the power of the largest American hydrogen bomb at that time reached “only” 15 megatons, which was already thousands of times higher) more powerful than bombs, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) was studied by a group of scientists led by Igor Kurchatov.

In fact, they could have tested a superbomb already in the late 1950s, but they were in no hurry to frighten obvious and imaginary opponents due to the short-term thaw that gripped the cold hearts of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev and American President Dwight Eisenhower. Blizzard in the early 1960s cold war swirled with new strength: a U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down near Sverdlovsk, there was unrest in divided Berlin, the revolution in Cuba led to an acute confrontation with the United States.

The last, active phase of work on superweapons entered in the summer of 1961, after the Soviet leader learned about the possibility of creating a 100-megaton thermo nuclear bomb. The leader could not ignore the unprecedented prospects and gave the go-ahead - give them a bomb by the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, that is, by October.

Today, physicists who participated in those events claim that with their work they wanted to stop nuclear war. It is unknown what motives they were really guided by then, but Sakharov wrote a note to Khrushchev in which he spoke out against testing a super-powerful bomb during the current moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. The First Secretary called all the fears and doubts “slobbering,” and at the end of the summer he could not stand it and threatened his capitalist enemies with a 100-megaton bomb. They didn’t make a secret of it.

The Western world shuddered at the mere statement of Nikita Khrushchev. A wave of anti-Soviet movements swept across the United States; a series of videos about protective measures during a nuclear attack were launched on television in the United States; newspapers were full of headlines accusing them of rehearsing the Third World War.

Meanwhile, the creation of “Kuzka’s Mother” went on as usual. Weapons were developed in closed city, V different times known as Kremlev, Arzamas-16 and Sarov. The secret settlement, in which only nuclear physicists lived, was closed from the outside world and was reminiscent of the very communism that was so threatened to be built throughout the planet. They didn’t turn it off here even in the summer hot water, shops were filled with raw smoked sausages, and each family was entitled to spacious free housing almost in heaven. True, the Soviet paradise was strictly guarded by soldiers and barbed wire - it was impossible to come here or leave without permission.

While practical physicists were racking their brains on how to make the most destructive weapon in human history, theorists were coming up with scenarios for its use. And “Ivan,” of course, was intended primarily for the destruction of the “evil empire” represented by the United States.

The question was how to deliver the Tsar Bomba to the territory of the hated enemy. An option was considered Submarine. The bomb was supposed to be detonated off the coast of the United States at a depth of 1 km. The power of the explosion of 100 million tons of TNT should have generated a tsunami half a kilometer high and 10 kilometers wide. After calculations, however, it turned out that America would have been saved by a continental shelf - only structures at a distance of no more than 5 km from the coast would have been in danger.

Even today it sounds fantastic, but physicists seriously considered the possibility of launching a bomb into Earth orbit. It could be directed at the United States directly from space. They say that theoretically the project was quite feasible, although it would have been incredibly expensive.

However, all these were questions of the distant and gloomy future. In the meantime, it was necessary to assemble the bomb itself. “Product 602” had a three-stage design. The first stage nuclear charge had a power of one and a half megatons and was designed to launch a thermo nuclear reaction in the second, the power of which reached 50 megatons. The same amount was provided by the third stage during the fission of uranium-238 nuclei.

Having calculated the consequences of the explosion of such a charge and the area of ​​subsequent radioactive contamination, they decided to replace the uranium elements in the third stage with lead. Thus, the estimated power of the bomb was reduced to 51.5 megatons.

Khrushchev explained this with his characteristic humor: “If we detonate a bomb with a capacity of 100 million tons where it is needed, it can break our windows too.”

The results of the scientists' work are impressive! The length of the weapon exceeded 8 meters, the diameter was 2, and the weight was 26 tons. There was no suitable crane to transport Ivan, so a separate railway line had to be built directly to the workshop where the bomb was assembled. From there the product set off on its penultimate journey - to the harsh polar Olenegorsk.

Not far from the city, at the Olenya airbase, a Tu-95 specially modified for it was waiting for the “Tsar Bomb”. The weapon did not fit on the plane, so part of the fuselage had to be cut out. To bring “Kuzkina-Mother” under the bomb bay, a pit was dug under it. The bomb still could not completely hide in the bowels of the ship and two-thirds of it was visible outside.

The crew was in great danger. The probability that he would remain completely unharmed as a result of the tests was only 1%. To increase the pilots' chances of survival, the plane was painted with white reflective paint, which was supposed to prevent the Tu-95B from catching fire (this is the name, the first and only, given to the aircraft adapted for transporting Ivan). A parachute the size of half a football field was placed in the tail of the bomb. His mission was to slow down the fall of the projectile to give the crew as much time as possible to escape the affected area.

On the morning of October 30, 1961, on the penultimate day of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, a plane with a terrible cargo took off from the Olenya airfield towards the Sukhoi Nos test site on Novaya Zemlya. At 11:32 a.m. the bomb was dropped from a height of 10.5 km. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 4 km. In the few minutes that the crew had, the plane managed to fly a distance of 45 km.

This, of course, was not enough to avoid feeling the wrath of the “Tsar Bomba” at all. A second after the explosion, a man-made sun blossomed above the earth - the flash could have been seen with simple binoculars even from Mars, and on Earth it was observed at a distance of 1000 km. A few seconds later, the diameter of the dust column of the nuclear mushroom grew to 10 km, and its top entered the mesosphere, rushing upward to 67 km.

Flash explosion

According to the pilots, at first it became unbearably hot in the cockpit. Then the plane was overtaken by the first shock wave, spreading at a speed of more than 1000 km/h. The ship, as if hit by a huge club, was thrown half a kilometer. Radio communication was lost throughout the entire Arctic for almost an hour. Fortunately, no one was hurt from the explosion - the pilots survived.

Observing the first consequences of the explosion, some Soviet physicists were afraid that an irreversible nuclear reaction had begun in the atmosphere - the fiery glow had been blazing for a very long time. Perhaps no one could predict the exact results of the tests. Serious scientists expressed the most ridiculous fears, even to the point that Product 602 would split the planet or melt the ice in the Arctic Ocean.

None of this happened. But the power of the explosion would have been enough to wipe out Washington and a dozen surrounding cities from the face of the Earth, while New York, Richmond and Baltimore would have suffered. Any metropolis could disappear, the center of which would completely evaporate, and the outskirts would turn into small rubble blazing in fire. It’s scary to imagine what the consequences could have been if the power of the explosion had been the initially planned 100 megatons...

Total blast zone superimposed on Paris

The rehearsal for the end of the world was a great success. The Tsar Bomba was never put into service: in order to use it in combat conditions, they did not come up with a suitable invulnerable carrier - you cannot install such a huge thing on a rocket, and the plane will be shot down long before approaching the target.

After the test was completed, everyone involved received what they deserved. For some - the title of Hero of the USSR, for the military - promotion, for scientists - recognition and generous bonuses. Exactly a year later, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out, almost pushing the fragile world into the mouth of another world war. A year later, the American president would be shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and in the fall of 1964 it would come to the removal of Nikita Khrushchev.

What about the people? The people who learned about some kind of “Tsar Bomb” later than the Americans still went to work, saved money and stood in line for Moskvich, got used to casseroles made from crackers, bread cards and other delights of the food crisis. The Soviet Union threatened the world with a nuclear club and asked America to sell tens of millions of tons of grain for food.

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October 30, 1961 – significant date in the history of the Cold War. On this day, the Soviet Union tested the most powerful thermonuclear bomb in history, which later received unofficial name"Tsar bomb".

The AN602 bomb (or “product 602”), detonated over the test site on Novaya Zemlya, was intended by the Soviet leadership to clearly show the West that the days of its superiority in nuclear weapons were in the past. The power of the thermonuclear device was monstrous - it was 57 megatons (according to other sources 58) per TNT equivalent.

In addition to propaganda purposes, the tests also had a completely practical significance: Soviet scientists needed to experimentally test their theoretical calculations related to the design of thermonuclear ammunition and the calculation of the power of their explosion. As a result of this “experiment,” it was proven that the power of thermonuclear weapons is unlimited.

Initially, they wanted to increase the power of the ammunition to 100 megatons, but then physicists had concerns about excessive radioactive contamination that such a charge could lead to. Therefore, it was decided to reduce the power of the bomb by half. Khrushchev himself later joked that they planned to explode 100 megatons, but were afraid for the windows in Moscow.

Almost immediately after the tests, AN602 received another unofficial name - “Kuzka’s Mother”, in honor of catchphrase Secretary General Khrushchev, which he threw from the UN rostrum. Then Nikita Sergeevich promised to “bury imperialism” and show the United States “Kuzka’s mother.” Soon it was clearly demonstrated to the Americans on Novaya Zemlya.

Above creation Soviet Tsar Bomba The best domestic minds worked: Trutnev, Sakharov, Babaev, Adamsky, Smirnov. The project was led by the famous Kurchatov, its implementation began in 1954.

History of creation

The atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened new era in the history of mankind and at the same time they gave rise to a period of intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, which entered the history books under the name of the Cold War. From that moment to this day, the power and status of any state is determined not only by the size of its armed forces and the level of economic development, but also by the presence of nuclear weapons.

The United States did not have a monopoly on the nuclear bomb for long. Thanks to the brilliant work of intelligence, by 1949 the Soviet Union managed to create its first nuclear charge and conduct its successful tests.

In 1953 Soviet army received the first aviation nuclear bomb RDS-3, which theoretically could be used to strike US territory.

However, in the early 60s the main problem The USSR was not in the number of nuclear warheads, but in the means of delivering nuclear weapons. Those that were available could not be guaranteed to provide a sufficiently powerful retaliatory strike against the adversary. At that time, rocket technology was just taking its first steps, and the main means of delivering nuclear weapons was strategic aviation. The Americans were significantly ahead of the USSR in this area. In addition to a significant fleet of strategic bombers, the United States also had big amount military bases near the Soviet borders where they could station their aircraft. The USSR did not have anything like this, so the bet was placed on the superiority of Soviet nuclear weapons over their American counterparts. Roughly speaking, the military took the route of increasing the power of the bombs, hoping that if anything reached enemy territory, it would fly in earnest. Even alone soviet bomber, breaking through the air defense cordons, could destroy a large American city or industrial area.

Around the mid-50s, work began on the creation of thermonuclear weapons in the USA and USSR. At the end of 1952, the Americans successfully tested the first hydrogen bomb, and eight months later the Soviet Union acquired similar weapons. It should be noted that soviet bomb had a more advanced design and could be used in practice.

Thermonuclear weapons fit perfectly into the Soviet concept of “asymmetric retaliatory strike,” because their power was theoretically unlimited. At the end of the 50s, work began in the Soviet Union on several projects of thermonuclear ammunition of monstrous power, as well as means of their delivery. For example, in 1960, a resolution of the Council of Ministers was issued on the start of the development of the N-1 intercontinental missile with a take-off weight of 2.2 thousand tons and a thermonuclear warhead of 75 tons. It is difficult to accurately indicate its power; we can only say that the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba weighed 26.5 tons. Around the same time, Chelomei was developing the UR-500 missile with a 150-megaton warhead. However, all these projects were so expensive and technically complex that they remained on paper.

There is a legend that when a project missile complex Khrushchev saw the UR-500 and estimated its approximate cost; he asked the designer: “What are we going to build? Communism or silos for your missiles? After this, the program was discontinued.

We can also mention the project giant torpedo with a multi-megaton warhead, which was planned to be detonated off the coast of America, thereby causing a devastating tsunami. The author of this project was the future laureate Nobel Prize Academician Sakharov. However, this idea was also not realized.

The creation of such monstrous thermonuclear monsters required mandatory practical testing. Moreover, for testing a sample of similar power was needed. Scientists needed to test their theoretical calculations, and the military needed to try to use such ammunition in practice in order to understand how to cause the greatest damage to a potential enemy.

Work on a super-powerful thermonuclear device began in the mid-50s. This project was carried out by specialists from NII-1011 (Chelyabinsk-70), today it is RFNC-VNIITF. At the same time, OKB-156 was working on creating a carrier aircraft for such an unusual ammunition. Initially, the bomb weighed 40 tons, which was categorically rejected by aircraft manufacturers. In the end, nuclear scientists promised to reduce the weight of the product by half.

In 1958 political reasons the superpower bomb project was closed.

There is a legend that the Soviet “Kuzka’s Mother” was developed in record time (112 days). This is not entirely true.

In 1960, the international situation deteriorated again and the Soviet leadership decided to resume the superbomb program. This project was transferred to KB-11 and the final part of the creation of the Tsar Bomba actually took 112 days. However, the AN602 product was based on developments made in the period from 1954 to 1958 at NII-1011. Although, it should be noted that many significant changes were made to the ammunition at the completion stage.

The development of a carrier aircraft for the AN602 was also a very difficult task. The designers of the Tupolev Design Bureau had to make serious changes to the power circuit of the Tu-95 aircraft, remodel its cargo compartment, and also change the suspension and ammunition release devices. The bomber designed for this mission was named Tu-95B. After the project was suspended, it was transported to a military airfield in Uzin, where it was used as a training tool.

The Tsar Bomba was intended to have a three-stage design. A nuclear charge with a yield of 1.5 megatons was used as the first stage. Its main function was to launch the second stage thermonuclear reaction, the power of which was 50 megatons. She, in turn, initiated the detonation of the third 50-megaton stage. Thus, a munition with a yield of 101.5 megatons was initially conceived.

Already during the implementation of the project, it was decided to abandon the third stage. The danger of radioactive contamination of territories outside the test site was too great, and they also did not want to cause too much damage to Novaya Zemlya, the future site of the Tsar Bomba explosion. So the bomb's power was reduced to 55 megatons, and lead plates were placed instead of the third stage.

To protect the aircraft crew from exposure damaging factors explosion, AN602 was equipped with three parachutes at once. The area of ​​the main parachute was more than 1.6 thousand square meters. meters. He should have allowed the bomber, after completing its mission, to move to a safe distance from the explosion site. A special reflective coating was applied to the fuselage of the aircraft.

The Tsar Bomba itself had a characteristic streamlined teardrop shape with four stabilizers in the tail section. Its weight was 26.5 tons, its length was 8 meters, and its largest diameter was 2.1 meters.

On October 17, 1961, Nikita Khrushchev, during the opening of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, told the audience that the USSR had a thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 100 megatons and was going to detonate a 50-megaton charge. After such a statement, nothing could stop the tests. The UN officially appealed to the Soviet leadership to abandon the explosion, but it was ignored.

AN602 tests and their results

The Tsar Bomba test was scheduled for October 30, 1961. On the morning of this day, a Tu-95V with an AN602 on board took off from the Olenya airfield, which Murmansk region, and headed for Novaya Zemlya. The crew consisted of nine people, the bomber was accompanied by a Tu-16A laboratory aircraft.

About two hours later, the Tu-95 reached its intended point above the Dry Nose training ground. AN602 was dropped from a height of 10 thousand meters. The explosion occurred after 188 seconds, during which time the bomber managed to retreat 39 km. The shock wave caught up with it at a distance of 115 km, causing strong vibration, although it did not cause much harm to the car.

The force of the Tsar Bomba explosion exceeded the expected one (51.5 Mt) and amounted to 58.5 Mt.

The duration of the outbreak was 65-70 seconds, the height of the “mushroom” exceeded 67 km, and the diameter of its cap was 95 km. The light radiation from the explosion could cause serious burns (third degree) at a distance of 100 kilometers.

The explosion caused a seismic wave that circled the planet three times. Thousands of witnesses stated that they felt a tangible blow, even being a thousand from its epicenter.

The sound wave reached Dikson Island (800 km). Some sources report that windows in buildings on the island were broken by the blast wave.

The severe ionization of the atmosphere generated by the explosion caused interference with radio communications within a radius of hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter. They lasted about an hour.

Radioactive contamination of the site was insignificant. Within a few hours, a group of testers landed on it and took the necessary measurements.

After the success of the test, the commander and navigator of the Tu-95V received the titles of Heroes, eight people from the bomb development team became Heroes socialist labor, several dozen scientists and designers received Lenin Prizes.

By the way, immediately after the test, scientists proposed several projects for creating even more powerful thermonuclear ammunition (300, 500 Mt). However, the military spoke out categorically against such ideas. An exploded 50-megaton bomb had already burned out an area the size of Paris, so why make even more powerful devices? And a lot of similar ammunition made them practical use almost impossible.

If we talk about the results of the tests on Novaya Zemlya, the main one, of course, was propaganda. The USSR clearly showed all ill-wishers that it was better not to joke with it. Fifty megatons is a lot good way cool down too hot heads. Tests of AN602 very quickly brought results: literally a few months later in Moscow, an agreement was signed between the USA, USSR and Great Britain banning any tests of nuclear weapons on land, on water and in space. This international document is still being implemented today.

The explosion also had important practical significance. In essence, AN602 was a large test bench with the help of which Soviet scientists and designers tested their theoretical calculations. And there was no other way to do it. In addition, the Soviet military received invaluable information regarding the use of ammunition of such power. In fact, due to its significant dimensions, the Tsar Bomba was not very suitable for practical use.

It should also be understood that the Soviet Union was not developing super-powerful ammunition out of a good life. To be honest, the main element of the Soviet “asymmetric response” strategy, of course, was intimidation. The Tu-95 simply could not deliver AN602 to the United States: due to the significant mass of ammunition, it simply would not have reached the target. After improving domestic intercontinental missiles the need for super-powerful nuclear charges disappeared; it was much more profitable to deliver a dozen warheads with relatively small charges to enemy territory than one multi-megaton monster.

AN602 (aka “Tsar Bomba”, aka “Kuzka’s Mother”, as well as (erroneously) RDS-202 and RN202 - thermonuclear aerial bomb, developed in the USSR in 1954-1961. a group of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences I.V. Kurchatov. The most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind. According to various sources, it had from 57 to 58.6 megatons of TNT equivalent. The mass defect during the explosion reached 2.65 kg. The total explosion energy is estimated at 2.4 1017 J. this moment The bomb has been defused and is in the museum...

The development group included A. D. Sakharov, V. B. Adamsky, Yu. N. Babaev, Yu. N. Smirnov, Yu. A. Trutnev and others.

The name "Kuzka's Mother" appeared under the impression famous saying N. S. Khrushchev “We ​​will still show America Kuzka’s mother!” Officially, the AN602 bomb did not have a name. In correspondence, the designation “product B” was also used for RN202, and AN602 was subsequently called this way (the GAU index is “product 602”). Currently, all this is sometimes a 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 it nor the RN202 ever carried). The product received the name “Tsar Bomba” as the most powerful and destructive weapon in history.

There is a widespread myth that the Tsar Bomba was designed on the instructions of N.S. Khrushchev and in record time - supposedly the entire development and production took 112 days. In fact, work on RN202/AN602 was carried out for more than seven years - from the autumn of 1954 to the autumn of 1961 (with a two-year break in 1959-1960). Moreover, 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 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 the corresponding research institute in the system of the Ministry of Medium Engineering 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 development of AN602 (already in KB-11 - now 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. However, AN602 was not simply a renamed RN202. A number of design changes were made to the design of the bomb - as a result of which, for example, its alignment noticeably changed. AN602 had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage (calculated contribution to the explosion power - 1.5 megatons) triggered a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (contribution to the explosion power - 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the nuclear “Jekyll reaction” Haida" (nuclear fission in uranium-238 blocks under the influence fast neutrons, formed as a result of the thermonuclear fusion reaction) in the third stage (another 50 megatons of power), so that the total calculated power of AN602 was 101.5 megatons.

The original version of the bomb was rejected due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination it would cause; it was decided not to use the Jekyll-Hyde reaction in the bomb's third stage and to replace the uranium components with their lead equivalent. This reduced the estimated total yield of the explosion by almost half (to 51.5 megatons).

The first work on “topic 242” began immediately after negotiations between I.V. Kurchatov and A.N. Tupolev (took place in the fall 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 serious changes in the power circuit of the original aircraft, in the design of the bomb bay and in the suspension and release devices. In the first half of 1955, the dimensional and weight drawings of the AN602, as well as the layout drawing of its placement, were agreed upon. As expected, the mass of the bomb was 15% of the take-off mass of the carrier, but it dimensions required the removal of the fuselage fuel tanks. Developed for the AN602 suspension, the new beam holder BD7-95-242 (BD-242) was similar in design to the BD-206, but significantly more load-bearing. It had three bomber castles Der5-6 with a carrying capacity of 9 tons each. The BD-242 was attached directly to the power longitudinal beams that edged the bomb bay. The problem of controlling the release of a bomb was also successfully solved - electrical automation ensured 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 CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers 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. This work was carried out at the LII MAP (Zhukovsky) from May to September 1956. Then the Tu-95B was accepted by the customer and handed over for flight tests, which were carried out (including dropping a mock-up of the “superbomb”) under the leadership of Colonel S. M. Kulikov until 1959 and passed without any special comments. In October 1961, “Kuzkin’s Mother” delivered to the training ground by the Dnepropetrovsk crew.

The carrier of the “superbomb” was created, but its actual 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 transported 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, testing of the “superbomb” again became relevant. On the Tu-95V, all connectors in the automatic release system were urgently replaced and the bomb bay doors were removed - a real bomb in weight (26.5 tons, including the weight of the parachute system - 0.8 tons) and dimensions turned out to be slightly larger than the mock-up (in particular, now its vertical dimension exceeded the dimensions of the bomb bay in height). The plane was also covered with special reflective white paint.

Khrushchev announced the upcoming 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-95B 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 took part in the tests.

2 hours after departure, the bomb was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters to parachute system at a conditional target within the Sukhoi Nos nuclear test site. The bomb was detonated barometrically 188 seconds after being dropped at an altitude of 4200 m above sea level (4000 m above the target), however, there is other data on the height of the explosion - in particular, the numbers were given as 3700 m above the target (3900 m above sea level) and 4500 m). The carrier plane managed to fly a distance of 39 kilometers (according to some sources - 250 km), and the laboratory plane - 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 information that according to initial data, the explosion power of AN602 was significantly overestimated and was estimated at up to 75 megatons.

There is video footage of the aircraft carrying this bomb landing after the test; the plane was burned; upon inspection after landing, it was clear that some of the protruding aluminum parts had melted and were deformed.

The explosion of AN602 was classified as a low air explosion of extremely high power. The results were impressive:

The fireball of the explosion reached a radius of approximately 4.6 kilometers. Theoretically, it could have grown to the surface of the earth, but this was prevented by the reflected shock wave, which crushed and threw the ball off the ground.
The radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away. Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio communication interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes. A noticeable seismic wave resulting from the explosion circled three times Earth. Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion thousands of kilometers away from its center. The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers; the diameter of its two-tier “hat” reached (at the top tier) 95 kilometers. The 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 the urban-type village of Amderma and the village of Belushya Guba located much closer (280 km) to the test site. Radioactive contamination of the experimental field with a radius of 2-3 km in the area of ​​the epicenter was no more than 1 mR/hour; the testers appeared at the site of the epicenter 2 hours after the explosion. Radioactive contamination posed virtually no danger to test participants

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

An extremely important scientific result was the experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of multistage thermonuclear charges. It was experimentally proven that the maximum power of a thermonuclear charge, in principle, is not limited by anything. So, in the tested bomb, to increase the explosion power by another 50 megatons, it was enough to make the third stage of the bomb (which was the shell of the second stage) not from lead, but from uranium-238, as was standard. Replacing the shell material and reducing the explosion power were due only to the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not to the desire 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, the lead shell of the same volume - based on the lower density of lead - about 1700 kg. The achieved lightening of just over one ton is barely noticeable given the total weight of the AN602 of at least 24 tons (even if we take the most conservative estimate) and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation.

It is also impossible to say 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 ensured a large number of radioactive fallout. Nevertheless, it can be considered that for a nuclear explosive device of such power, AN602 was indeed quite clean - more than 97% of the explosion power was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically did not create radioactive contamination.

Discussion about ways of political application of technology for 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 Sakharov’s project to place several dozen super-powerful nuclear warheads with a capacity of 200 or even 500 megatons along the American sea borders, which, according to the scientist, allowed would sober up neoconservative circles political elite The United States without being drawn into a ruinous arms race.

Source - http://ru.wikipedia.org and others.

P.S. There are versions that the bomb's initial power was 400 megatons and was artificially reduced due to the fact that scientists feared the consequences of the explosion. There is a version that no one reduced the power of the explosion, and 50 megatons came out because “something went wrong.” There is also information that after the explosion, the thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere continued for two hours. It was also planned to use projected missiles of the 8K68, UR-500, UR-700, UR-900 and others types as a carrier.

October 30, 1961 at the training ground New Earth The most powerful explosion in human history was detonated. The thermonuclear charge was delivered to the target on a Tu-95 carrier aircraft, piloted by a crew consisting of commander Andrei Durnovtsev and navigator Ivan Kleshch. They were warned that their safety was not guaranteed: they could protect themselves from the blinding flash, but the shock wave could bring down the plane.

The main purpose of detonating the bomb was to demonstrate the USSR's possession of unlimited weapons of mass destruction. At that time, the most powerful thermonuclear bomb tested in the United States was almost four times weaker.

The bomb, which received several nicknames (“Tsar Bomba” or “Kuzka’s Mother”), was developed in the USSR in 1954-1961. a group of nuclear physicists led by Academician Kurchatov. The bomb's yield was about 57 megatons of TNT. It was reported that the Tsar Bomba was constructed by order of N. S. Khrushchev in record time - 112 days, but only the final stage of development took that long.

The initial version of the “Tsar Bomba” had a three-stage design of the following form: the nuclear charge of the first stage with an estimated contribution to the explosion power of 1.5 megatons launched a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (contribution to the explosion power - 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated a nuclear reaction in the third stage, adding another 50 megatons of power. However, this option was rejected due to the extremely high level of radioactive contamination. The tested Tsar Bomba had a modified third stage, where the uranium components were replaced with a lead equivalent. This reduced the estimated total yield of the explosion to 51.5 megatons.

The Tu-95 bomber took off from the Olenya airfield in the morning and two hours later reached its design point within the Sukhoi Nos nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya. The bomb was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters using a parachute system to give the pilots the opportunity to move as far as possible.

The Tsar Bomba exploded after 188 seconds at an altitude of 4,200 meters above sea level. The bomber managed to move 39 kilometers from the release point, and the accompanying laboratory aircraft - 53.5 kilometers. The power of the explosion exceeded the calculated one and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons.

The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers, the fireball of the explosion had a radius of 4.6 kilometers. The shock wave circled the globe three times, and the resulting ionization of the atmosphere caused interference with radio communications within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. The interference continued for 40 minutes. Witnesses felt the shock wave thousands of kilometers away, with radiation potentially causing third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away. On the ground below the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature was so high that the stones turned to ash.

The main part of the cloud was carried aside North Pole, however, radiation fallout was observed in the deep territories of the USSR. It is curious that for a bomb of such power, “Kuzka’s Mother” was quite clean - 97% of the power was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which creates virtually no radioactive contamination.

Before the test of the Tsar Bomba, rumors began to appear in society, based on the science fiction of those years, that the explosion could initiate a thermonuclear reaction in sea ​​water and cause an explosion of the oceans that will split the planet into pieces. Another version said that the bomb would cause a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction in the atmosphere.

The last test of a nuclear bomb in the history of the USSR took place on October 24, 1990 at the Novozmelsky test site. About a year later, RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin announced a moratorium on nuclear testing.

Exactly 51 years ago, Nikita Khrushchev fulfilled his promise and showed the United States and the whole world “Kuzka’s Mother” - on October 30, 1961, at 11.35 Moscow time, the most powerful explosive device in the entire history of mankind was detonated at the nuclear test site of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. This thermonuclear aerial bomb got its name from Khrushchev’s famous promise to show America “Kuzma’s mother”, and it is also called the “Tsar Bomb”, as well as some numbers like AN602.

The power of the initial version of the bomb, conceived by scientists, was 101.5 megatons. This is 10 thousand times more than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. If such a bomb were detonated over, say, New York, then New York would disappear from the face of the Earth. Its center would simply evaporate (not collapse, but evaporate), and the rest would turn into small rubble in the middle of a giant fire. What would remain of the metropolis would be a melted, smooth surface twenty kilometers in diameter, surrounded by small debris and ash. And all cities located within a radius of 700 kilometers from New York would be destroyed. Philadelphia, for example, is completely, but, say, Boston is a significant part of it.

But when the military began to estimate the scale of damage from testing an explosion of such power, even at a test site that occupied almost the entire Novaya Zemlya archipelago with an area of ​​82,600 sq. km, they became afraid of the consequences. And the completely destroyed training ground, and the inevitably destroyed plane along with the pilots, were not the worst of them. Scientists reluctantly agreed, and in the end it was decided to reduce the estimated total power of the explosion by almost half, to 51.5 megatons.
The bomb was dropped by a Tu-95 bomber from an altitude of 10.5 km. The power of the explosion exceeded the calculated one and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons. The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 km, the fireball of the explosion had a radius of 4.6 km. The shock wave circled the globe three times, and the resulting ionization of the atmosphere caused interference with radio communications within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. Witnesses felt the shock wave thousands of kilometers away, with radiation potentially causing third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away. On the ground below the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature was so high that the stones turned to ash. The main part of the cloud was carried towards the North Pole, and for a bomb of such power, the radioactivity was quite small - 97% of the power was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically does not create radioactive contamination.
The main purpose of detonating this bomb was to demonstrate the USSR's possession of unlimited weapons of mass destruction. The whole world should have shuddered, and it shuddered - I don’t know about you, but this description still makes me a little uneasy.

And finally, from the “Memoirs” of one of the fathers of “Kuzka’s Mother”, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Academician Sakharov: “After testing the “big” product, I was worried that there was no good carrier for it (bombers don’t count, they are easy to shoot down) - that is, in a military sense, we were working in vain. I decided that such a carrier could be a large torpedo launched from a submarine [...] Of course, the destruction of ports is like a surface explosion of a torpedo with a 100-megaton charge. , and an underwater explosion, inevitably involves very large casualties.
One of the first people with whom I discussed this project was Rear Admiral F. Fomin* (formerly a combat commander, it seems, Hero of the Soviet Union). He was shocked by the “cannibalistic” nature of the project, and noted in a conversation with me that sailors were accustomed to fighting an armed enemy in open battle, and that the very thought of such a thing was disgusting to him mass murder. I was ashamed and never discussed my project with anyone again."
* So in the text of Sakharov’s Memoirs. In fact, who was in charge then nuclear project from the Navy, Hero of the Soviet Union, Rear Admiral Fomin, name was Pyotr Fomich. And it seems to me that if scientists had given free rein, like Academician Sakharov was at that time, they would have blown up the Earth long ago. Simply because it is interesting from a scientific point of view. But this did not happen largely thanks to the military, such as Admiral Fomin. However, don’t you think it’s a paradox?