The Tsar Bomba (code name: Ivan or Vanya, internal designation "AN602") is the most powerful nuclear weapon or weapon of any kind ever constructed and tested. A project of the Soviet Union, it was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, tested on 30 October 1961 at the Novaya Zemlya site in the country's far north. The bomb yielded the equivalent of 50 megatons of TNT. The Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov oversaw the project at Arzamas-16, while the main work of design was by Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev. The project was ordered by First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev in July 1961 as part of the Soviet resumption of nuclear testing after the Test Ban Moratorium, with the detonation timed to coincide with the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Tested on 30 October 1961, the test verified new design principles for high-yield thermonuclear charges, allowing nuclear explosives "of practically unlimited power". The bomb was dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft, and detonated autonomously 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) above the cape Sukhoy Nos of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, 15 kilometres (8 nautical miles) from Mityushikha Bay, north of Matochkin Strait. Blast data and footage was recorded by a Soviet Tu-16. Both aircraft received radiation flash damage. The bhangmeter results and other data suggested the bomb yielded around 58 Mt (243 PJ), which was the accepted yield in technical literature until 1991, when Soviet scientists revealed that their instruments indicated a yield of 50 Mt (209 PJ). As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate. In theory, the bomb would have had a yield over 100 Mt (418 PJ) if it had included the natural uranium tamper which featured in the design but was replaced with lead in the test to reduce radioactive fallout. As only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. The design was too large and heavy to be deployed operationally, although it influenced the initial development of the Proton rocket. The next four most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever to have taken place were carried out by the Soviet Union the following year. The United States government's reaction emphasized the lack of military usefulness, and signalled readiness to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, eventually realized in 1963. It also prompted the disclosure of the US B41 nuclear bomb's 25 Mt (105 PJ) yield. In the Western world, the reaction focused on the incorrectly assumed record level of fission product fallout from a typical fissionable tamper design, similar to the US Castle Bravo test disaster. In fact, the Tsar Bomba derived only 3% of its yield from fission, or 1.5 Mt.
Background In the late 1950s Cold War, the US nuclear weapons arsenal greatly exceeded that of the USSR in quantity of weapons, total explosive yield of weapons, and their ability to deliver the weapon. In the early part of the decade, the Strategic Air Command had begun deploying nuclear-capable bombers, as well as actual weapons, to airbases hosted by US allies within striking distance of the Soviet Union, as well as deploying them on aircraft carriers and on medium-range ballistic missiles in the United Kingdom. The USSR had a credible ability to threaten American allies in Western Europe and Asia via a limited bomber and short-range missile force, had tested a multi-stage thermonuclear weapon in 1955, and had begun testing a prototype rocket for an intercontinental ballistic missile in 1957. Its leadership was well aware that the USSR's deployed nuclear forces in 1960 could not reliably and credibly threaten targets in the continental United States, and that in the event of war, the Soviet Union would struggle to reply in kind. This in turn threatened to weaken Soviet leverage in hot-spots like Berlin, which had been the subject of Soviet and American tension since the end of World War II. Given the Soviet Union's strategic disadvantage concerning America's nuclear weapons possessions, foreign policy and propaganda considerations during the leaderships of Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev made a response to the perceived US nuclear blackmail imperative for both international and domestic reasons. The creation of the Tsar Bomba represented part of a larger effort to maintain the concept of nuclear deterrence, and to impress (and terrify) both domestic and international audiences with the strength of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, even though the weapon itself was arguably impractical.
Name The name Tsar Bomba is a recent invention dating to the 1990s. Contemporarily, the bomb was referred to by Western Bloc press as the "50-megaton bomb" or "100-megaton bomb". Tsar Bomba was a modification of an earlier project, RN202, which used a ballistic case of the same size but a very different internal mechanism. Many published books, even some authored by those involved in product development of 602, contain inaccuracies that are replicated elsewhere, including wrongly identifying Tsar Bomba as RDS-202 or RN202. The bomb was officially known as "product 602" (изделие 602) or "AN602", and codenamed "Ivan". The usage of different names can be a source of confusion. The Tsar Bomba, being a modification of (the) RN202, is sometimes mistakenly labelled as RDS-37, RDS-202 or PH202 (product 202). Unofficially, the bomb would later become known as "Tsar Bomba" and "Kuzka's mother" (Кузькина мать, Kuz'kina mat'). The name Tsar Bomba (loosely translated as Emperor of Bombs) comes from an allusion to two other Russian historical artifacts, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell, both of which were created as showpieces but whose large size made them impractical for use. The name "Tsar Bomba" does not seem to have been used for the weapon prior to the 1990s. The name "Kuzka's Mother" was inspired by the statement of Khrushchev to then US Vice President Richard Nixon: "We have funds at our disposal that will have dire consequences for you. We will show you Kuzka's mother!" The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) designated the test as "JOE 111" using their "JOE" counting scheme, which had begun with RDS-1 in 1949.
Development
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