Also, there were no effective means of delivering nuclear warheads to the US, both in the 1950s and in 1961. In the mid-1950s, the United States (US) had an unconditional superiority over the Soviet Union (USSR) in nuclear weapons, although thermonuclear charges had already been created in the USSR at this time. A number of published books, even some authored by those involved in product development 602, contain inaccuracies that are replicated elsewhere, including wrongly identifying AN602 as RDS-202 or RN202.
The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum in Sarov and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Of Technical Physics, in Snezhinsk.ĪN602 (Tsar Bomba) was a modification of the RN202 project. Because only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. In theory, the bomb would have had a yield in excess of 100 Mt (418 PJ) if it had included the uranium-238 fusion tamper which figured in the design but which was omitted in the test to reduce radioactive fallout. As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate. 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). reconnaissance aircraft named "Speed Light Alpha" monitored the blast, coming close enough to have its antiradiation paint scorched. The detonation was intended to be secret, but was detected by United States intelligence agencies, via a KC-135A aircraft (Operation SpeedLight) in the area at the time. The bomb was dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft, and detonated autonomously 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) above the Sukhoy Nos ("Dry Nose") cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, 15 km (9.3 mi) from Mityushikha Bay, north of Matochkin Strait.
Tested on 30 October 1961, the scientific result of the test was the experimental verification of calculation principles and multi-stage thermonuclear charges. Tsar Bomba was developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) by a group of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Igor Kurchatov, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.
The Tsar Bomba ( Russian: Царь-бо́мба), ( code name: Ivan or Vanya), also known by the alphanumerical designation AN602, was a hydrogen aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested.