The design and explosion of the RDS-220 Tsar, the most powerful atomic bomb in history

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union conducted a nuclear test that was a turning point in the military atomic arms race.

Semipalatinsk, a top secret site that withstood 456 Soviet atomic tests
The interior of the B-29 'Bockscar', the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki

That day, a modified Tupolev Tu-95V bomber, serial number 5800302, took off from the Soviet Navy air base at Olenya, on the Kola Peninsula, with a crew of nine. The aircraft was coated with reflective white paint, intended to protect the airmen from the effects of the nuclear explosion.

The aircraft flew toward Novaya Zemlya, a Russian archipelago located within the Arctic Circle. The Tu-95V carried an RDS-220 atomic bomb, also known as the Tsar Bomba, mounted on its underside. The name was a reference to the 200-ton Tsar Kolokol bell displayed in the Kremlin, which is the largest bell in the world.

The device had a yield of 50 megatons, weighed 27 tons, and measured 8 meters long by 2 meters wide. To give you an idea, it was 3,800 times more powerful than the Little Boy bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The Tsar Bomba was twice as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb ever created by the US, the B41.

The bomb was dropped at 11:30 a.m. from an altitude of 10,500 meters. The bomb's descent was delayed by the deployment of a series of parachutes to give the Tu-95V time to move away from the blast zone. The Tsar Bomba detonated its nuclear warhead at 11:33 a.m. at an altitude of 4,200 meters above sea level. It was the largest explosion ever created by humankind. The mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 65 kilometers. The colossal explosion was visible from 1,000 kilometers away, despite the cloudy sky, and could have caused third-degree burns within a 100-kilometer radius of the detonation point.

The Tsar Bomba was designed to destroy large cities, but its detonation caused a global shock, leading to the signing of the first agreements banning atmospheric nuclear testing by the United States. Severny Island was flattened, the ground leveled by the explosion. It should be noted that the USSR tested a total of 130 nuclear weapons in Novaya Zemlya, the radioactivity of which affected not only Soviet territory but also parts of Alaska, northern Canada, and Norway.

Yesterday, Blue Paw Print (a YouTube channel I recommend you subscribe to) published an excellent video explaining the design of the Tsar Bomba and how it was detonated, as well as its repercussions:

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Main image: Blue Paw Print.