#TSAR BOMBA MEGATONS CODE#

The bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks were removed from the Tu-95V due to its large size. It was 26 feet in length and 6.9 feet in diameter. Tsar Bomba weighed 27 metric tons or 59,525 lbs. A reflective white paint was used on the planes to minimize thermal damage to their surfaces. The bomber was accompanied by a Tu-16 observer plane that was responsible for collecting air samples and filming the test. Thus, despite its huge yield, Tsar Bomba did not actually generate much nuclear fallout.Ī Tu-95V Soviet long range bomber piloted by Major Andrei Durnovstev delivered Tsar Bomba during the test. Because fast fissioning was eliminated, thermonuclear fusion accounted for as much as 97% of the yield. The uranium-238 fusion tamper greatly amplifies the reaction by fissioning uranium atoms with fast neutrons from the fusion reaction. It has been speculated that the second stage used this method as well. Therefore, to minimize nuclear fallout, the third stage incorporated a lead tamper instead of a uranium-238 fusion tamper. Additionally, the delivery plane would not have had sufficient time to retreat to a safe distance. Tsar Bomba could have theoretically yielded as much as 100 megatons, but it would have resulted in a dangerous level of nuclear fallout (approximately 25% of all fallout produced since the invention of nuclear weapons in 1945). There is evidence that Tsar Bomba utilized several third stages. The energy produced from this explosion is then directed to compress the much larger thermonuclear third stage. A three-stage hydrogen bomb uses a fission-type atomic bomb as the first stage to compress the thermonuclear second stage. The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage hydrogen bomb with a Trutnev-Babaev second and third stage design.

The team also included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev. The Central Intelligence Agency designated the Tsar Bomba nuclear test as “JOE 111.” DesignĪ team of physicists led by Yuli Khariton designed Tsar Bomba.

#TSAR BOMBA MEGATONS CODE#

Tsar Bomba was also referred to as “Kuzkina mat” (Кузькина мать) or “Kuzma's mother.” This nickname may refer to Nikita Khrushchev's promise made at a 1960 session of the United Nations General Assembly to show the United States a “Kuzkina mat,” which also roughly translates to “We'll show you!” There were many other nicknames associated with Tsar Bomba such as Big Ivan, Project 7000, and Product Code 202 (Izdeliye 202). With a yield of 50 megatons of TNT, Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a number of hydrogen bomb tests conducted throughout this time by both the Soviet Union and the United States. Detonated by the Soviet Union on October 30, 1961, Tsar Bomba is the largest nuclear device ever detonated and the most powerful man-made explosion in history. Tsar Bomba (in Russian, Царь-бомба) is the Western nickname for the Soviet RDS-220 (РДС-220) hydrogen bomb (code name Vanya).

Tsar bomba megatons