Nuclear (or atomic) weapons are explosive weapons based on uncontrolled fission chain reactions. heavy nuclei and reactions thermonuclear fusion. For implementation chain reaction fission uses either uranium-235 or plutonium-239, or, in some cases, uranium-233. Refers to weapons of mass destruction along with biological and chemical weapons. The power of a nuclear charge is measured in TNT equivalent, usually expressed in kilotons and megatons.

Nuclear weapons were first tested on July 16, 1945 in the United States at the Trinity test site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. In the same year, the United States used it in Japan during the bombing of the cities of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9.

In the USSR, the first test atomic bomb- RDS-1 products - carried out on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. The RDS-1 was a drop-shaped airborne atomic bomb, weighing 4.6 tons, 1.5 m in diameter and 3.7 m long. Plutonium was used as a fissile material. The bomb was detonated at 07:00 local time (4:00 Moscow time) on a mounted metal lattice tower 37.5 m high, located in the center of the experimental field with a diameter of about 20 km. The power of the explosion was 20 kilotons of TNT.

The RDS-1 product (the documents indicated the decoding "jet engine "C") was created at Design Bureau No. 11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, RFNC-VNIIEF, Sarov), which was organized for the creation of an atomic bomb in April 1946. Work on the creation of the bomb was led by Igor Kurchatov (scientific supervisor of work on the atomic problem since 1943; organizer of the bomb test) and Julius Khariton (chief designer of KB-11 in 1946-1959).

Research on atomic energy was carried out in Russia (later the USSR) as early as the 1920s and 1930s. In 1932, a group on the nucleus was formed at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, headed by the director of the institute, Abram Ioffe, with the participation of Igor Kurchatov (deputy head of the group). In 1940, the Uranium Commission was established at the USSR Academy of Sciences, which in September of the same year approved the work program for the first Soviet uranium project. However, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, most of the research on the use of atomic energy in the USSR was curtailed or discontinued.

Research on the use of atomic energy resumed in 1942 after receiving intelligence about the deployment by the Americans of work on the creation of an atomic bomb ("Manhattan Project"): on September 28, an order was issued State Committee Defense (GKO) "On the organization of work on uranium".

On November 8, 1944, the GKO decided to create in Central Asia a large uranium mining enterprise based on deposits in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. In May 1945, the first enterprise in the USSR for the extraction and processing of uranium ores, Combine No. 6 (later the Leninabad Mining and Metallurgical Combine), began operating in Tajikistan.

After the explosions of American atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by a GKO decree of August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the GKO, headed by Lavrenty Beria, to "lead all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium", including the production of an atomic bomb.

In accordance with the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of June 21, 1946, Khariton prepared a "tactical and technical assignment for an atomic bomb", which marked the beginning of full-scale work on the first domestic atomic charge.

In 1947, 170 km west of Semipalatinsk, "Object-905" was created for testing nuclear charges (in 1948 it was transformed into training ground No. 2 of the USSR Ministry of Defense, later it became known as Semipalatinsk; in August 1991 it was closed). The construction of the test site was completed by August 1949 for the bomb test.

The first test of the Soviet atomic bomb broke the US nuclear monopoly. Soviet Union became the second nuclear power in the world.

A report on the testing of nuclear weapons in the USSR was published by TASS on September 25, 1949. And on October 29, a closed decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On rewarding and bonuses for outstanding scientific discoveries and technical achievements on the use of atomic energy". For the development and testing of the first Soviet atomic bomb, six employees of KB-11 were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor: Pavel Zernov (design bureau director), Yuli Khariton, Kirill Shchelkin, Yakov Zeldovich, Vladimir Alferov, Georgy Flerov. Deputy Chief designer Nikolai Dukhov received a second golden star Hero of Socialist Labor. 29 employees of the bureau were awarded the Order of Lenin, 15 - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, 28 became laureates Stalin Prize.

Today, the mock-up of the bomb (its body, the RDS-1 charge, and the remote control used to detonate the charge) is kept at the RFNC-VNIIEF Museum of Nuclear Weapons.

In 2009, the UN General Assembly declared 29 August as the International Day against Nuclear Tests.

A total of 2,062 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted in the world, which eight states have. The US accounts for 1032 explosions (1945-1992). The United States of America is the only country to have used this weapon. The USSR conducted 715 tests (1949-1990). The last explosion took place on October 24, 1990 at the Novaya Zemlya test site. In addition to the USA and the USSR, nuclear weapons were created and tested in Great Britain - 45 (1952-1991), France - 210 (1960-1996), China - 45 (1964-1996), India - 6 (1974, 1998), Pakistan - 6 (1998) and North Korea - 3 (2006, 2009, 2013).

In 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) entered into force. Currently, 188 countries of the world are its participants. The document was not signed by India (in 1998 it introduced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and agreed to put its nuclear facilities under the control of the IAEA) and Pakistan (in 1998 it introduced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing). North Korea, having signed the treaty in 1985, withdrew from it in 2003.

In 1996, a universal cessation of nuclear testing was enshrined in the international treaty Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban (CTBT). After that, only three countries carried out nuclear explosions - India, Pakistan and North Korea.

If you try to look at the events of the second half of the 40s through the eyes of Soviet leaders, then for them the situation in the world looked like this: the United States has weapons of an unprecedented destructive power, but the USSR - not yet; The USA came out of the war with a huge military and economic potential, and the USSR is forced to heal its wounds; US refusal to continue economic aid The USSR, obstacles to the spread of Soviet influence, political demarches of Western leaders - there is nothing more than an undeclared war, the purpose of which is to weaken the Soviet Union and minimize its role in Europe and the world (including through an arms race, and in the future possibly by open military means).

Today, when documents from the first period of the Cold War have been published in the United States, the thesis about the desire of the American leadership to wear out the USSR in the arms race, weaken it, and even destroy it with the help of an atomic bomb, finds new confirmation. So, documents became available on the possible delivery of nuclear strikes on the USSR (Pinzerz, Dropshot, etc. plans); the position of one of the ministers in the Truman administration, W. Foster, is well known, who justified the doubling of US military spending by the fact that this would “deprive the Russian people of a third of the already very meager consumer goods.” Nor is the opinion of G. Truman himself a secret, who declared after testing the American atomic bomb that he now had a "good club" for the Russian guys.

The military-industrial complex played a priority role in the post-war economy of the USSR. did not rule out the idea that the country might again, as in 1941, be unprepared for big war- now with the US and its allies. Along with modernization ground forces(the creation of new tanks, artillery pieces, the release in 1947 of the machine gun invented by the designer Kalashnikov - the world-famous AK-47), new jet fighters MIGs, new warships were laid down. However, the main emphasis was placed on the speedy elimination of the US nuclear monopoly - the creation of its own atomic bomb and means of delivering nuclear weapons to the territory of a potential enemy. At the time, there were already plans in the United States to apply atomic strikes 20, 50, and then more Soviet cities. L. Beria was appointed to oversee the Soviet atomic project on the part of the government, who was appointed chairman of a special (atomic) committee in the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. Huge technical, financial and human resources, including the labor of prisoners, were directed at his disposal. Thanks to the incredible efforts of Soviet scientists and designers, thanks to the work of hundreds of thousands of people, in 1948 the first R-1 ballistic missile was successfully launched in the USSR, and in 1949 an atomic bomb was tested.

It should be noted that work in this area was significantly accelerated by Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence. The creation of a rocket and an atomic bomb in the USSR could have been completed later if Soviet scientists had not used in their developments information on the production of German V-rockets obtained in the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, and did not compare their research in the nuclear sphere with data on the American atomic bomb. project received from the Soviet intelligence network in the West (including from members of the so-called "Cambridge Five"). The achievements of the USSR in the field of nuclear and missile technologies, made possible thanks to such scientists as Kurchatov, Korolev, Keldysh and others, made it possible not only to create a nuclear missile shield of the country, but also to use the latest discoveries for peaceful purposes. Already in 1954, the first in the world was launched in Obninsk nuclear power plant, and research was actively carried out to launch an artificial Earth satellite into space, which was crowned with success in 1957.

TAMING THE CORE

September 24, 1918- Organization in Petrograd of the State X-ray and Radiological Institute, which included the Physics and Technology Department, headed by Professor A.F. Ioffe.

December 15, 1918- Creation in Petrograd of the State Optical Institute (GOI) headed by Academician D.S. Christmas.

late 1918 year - Creation in Moscow of the Central Chemical Laboratory, since 1931 transformed into the Institute of Physics and Chemistry, headed by Academician A.N. Bach.

January 21, 1920- The first meeting of the Atomic Commission, in which A.F. Ioffe, D.S. Rozhdestvensky, A.N. Krylov and other prominent scientists.

April 15, 1921- Creation of the Radium Laboratory at the Academy of Sciences, headed by V.G. Khlopin.

late 1921- Development and implementation of I.Ya. Bashilov processing technologies uranium ore from the Tuyamuyunskoye deposit to obtain factory-scale preparations of radium and uranium.

January 1, 1922- Transformation of the State X-ray and Radiological Institute into three independent research institutions:

X-ray and Radiological Institute headed by M.I. Nemenov;

Physical-Technical Institute (LFTI) headed by A.F. Ioffe;

Radium Institute headed by V.I. Vernadsky.

March 1, 1923- Adoption of a resolution State Council Labor and Defense on the extraction and accounting of radium.

1928 - Creation of Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology(UFTI) in Kharkov, headed by I.V. Obreimov.

1931 - Creation in Leningrad of the Institute of Chemical Physics headed by N.N. Semenov.

1931 - Creation on the basis of the Institute of Applied Mineralogy of the State Research Institute of Rare Metals (Giredmet), headed by V.I. Glebovoy.

1932 - D.D. Ivanenko put forward the hypothesis of the structure of nuclei from protons and neutrons.

1933 - Creation of the Commission for the study of the atomic nucleus of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which included A.F. Ioffe (Chairman), S.E. Frish, I.V. Kurchatov, A.I. Leipunsky and A.V. Mysovsky.

1934 - P.A. Cherenkov discovered a new optical phenomenon (Cherenkov-Vavilov radiation).

1934 - Obtaining A.I. Brodsky (Institute physical chemistry Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR) of the first heavy water in the USSR.

December 28, 1934- Creation of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow headed by P.L. Kapitsa.

1935 - I.V. Kurchatov, together with his collaborators, discovered nuclear isomerism.

1937 - Obtaining a beam of accelerated protons at the Radium Institute at the first cyclotron in Europe.

summer 1938- Wording by the director of the Radium Institute V.G. Khlopin of proposals for the development of the problem of the atomic nucleus in the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in the third five-year plan.

late 1938- Formulation by director Institute of Physics S.I. Vavilov proposals for the organization of work in the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the study of the atomic nucleus.

November 25, 1938- Decree of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on the organization of work in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on the study of the atomic nucleus and the creation of a permanent Commission on the atomic nucleus at the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The commission included S.I. Vavilov (chairman), A.F. Ioffe, I.M. Frank, A.I. Alikhanov, I.V. Kurchatov and V.I. Veksler. In June 1940, V.G. Khlopin and I.I. Gurevich.

March 7, 1939- Proposal by M.G. Pervukhin on the concentration of research work on the atomic nucleus at the Physico-Technical Institute in Kharkov.

July 30, 1940- Establishment of the Commission on the problem of uranium for the coordination and general management of the research work of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on the uranium problem. The commission included V.G. Khlopin (chairman), V.I. Vernadsky (deputy chairman), A.F. Ioffe (Deputy Chairman), A.E. Fersman, S.I. Vavilov, P.P. Lazarev, A.N. Frumkin, L.I. Mandelstam, G.M. Krzhizhanovsky, P.L. Kapitsa, I.V. Kurchatov, D.I. Shcherbakov, A.P. Vinogradov and Yu.B. Khariton.

September 5, 1940- Suggestions by A.E. Fersman on speeding up exploration and production of uranium ores.

October 15, 1940- The Commission on the problem of uranium has prepared a plan for research and exploration work for 1940-1941. The main tasks were:

Study of the possibilities of implementing a chain reaction on natural uranium;

Refinement of the physical data necessary for the evaluation of the development of a chain reaction on uranium-235;

Study of various methods separation of isotopes and assessment of their applicability for the separation of uranium isotopes;

Exploring the possibilities of obtaining volatile organic compounds uranium;

State research raw material base uranium and the creation of a uranium fund.

November 30, 1940- Report by A.E. Fersman on the results of prospecting for uranium ore deposits in Central Asia.

October 1941- Obtaining the first intelligence information about the work on the uranium project in the UK.

summer 1942- Proposal of G.M. Flerov on the creation of a nuclear explosive device.

September 28, 1942- Order of the GKO "On the organization of work on uranium", which marked the beginning of the development of work on atomic energy in the USSR. The order ordered the creation of a Special Laboratory of the Atomic Nucleus (Laboratory No. 2) at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to coordinate work on the atomic project.

November 27, 1942- Memorandum I.V. Kurchatova V.M. Molotov, which contained an analysis of intelligence materials on the development of the atomic project in Great Britain and proposals for the creation of atomic weapons in the USSR.

February 11, 1943- The order of the State Defense Committee on the organization of work on uranium appointed M.G. Pervukhin and S.V. Kaftanov. The scientific leadership of the problem was entrusted to I.V. Kurchatov.

March 10, 1943- Appointment of I.V. Kurchatov as the head of Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Research Center "Kurchatov Institute", Moscow), a scientific center for the atomic project.

1943 - Systematic analysis of I.V. Kurchatov intelligence materials of the NKVD of the USSR on the development of nuclear projects in the USA and Great Britain and the development of proposals by M.G. Pervukhin on the development of work on the atomic project in the USSR.

November 1944- Beginning of the development of technology for obtaining metallic uranium.

November 21, 1944- Sending a group of Soviet specialists to Bulgaria to analyze the state of uranium ore deposits.

December 8, 1944- The decision of the State Defense Committee to transfer the mining and processing of uranium ores to the jurisdiction of the NKVD of the USSR and the organization of a special department for these purposes.

late 1944- Creation in the NKVD system of NII-9 (now VNIINM named after A.A. Bochvar, Moscow) to develop technologies for producing metallic uranium, its special compounds and metallic plutonium (director V.B. Shevchenko).

May 9, 1945- Sending to Germany a group of Soviet specialists headed by A.P. Zavenyagin to search for and accept materials on the uranium problem in Germany. The main result of the group's activity was the discovery and export to the USSR of about one hundred tons of uranium concentrates.

August 6, 1945- The first military use of the atomic bomb by the United States of America. Air bomb drop on japanese city Hiroshima.

August 9, 1945- The second military use of the atomic bomb by the United States of America. Air bombs dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

August 20, 1945- By the decree of the GKO, a Special Committee was created under the GKO to manage all work on the use of atomic energy. Chairman - L.P. Beria, members of the Special Committee - G.M. Malenkov, N.A. Voznesensky, B.L. Vannikov, A.P. Zavenyagin, I.V. Kurchatov, P.L. Kapitsa, M.G. Pervukhin and V.A. Makhnev. A Technical Council was established under the Special Committee. Chairman - B.L. Vannikov, members of the Technical Council - A.I. Alikhanov, I.N. Voznesensky, A.P. Zavenyagin, A.F. Ioffe, P.L. Kapitsa, I.K. Kikoin, I.V. Kurchatov, V.A. Makhnev, Yu.B. Khariton and V.G. Khlopin. Under the Technical Council, the following were established: the Commission for the electromagnetic separation of uranium (head - A.F. Ioffe), the Commission for the production of heavy water (head - P.L. Kapitsa), the Commission for the study of plutonium (head - V.G. Khlopin), Commission for Chemical-Analytical Research (Head - A.P. Vinogradov), Section for Labor Protection (Head - V.V. Parin).

August 30, 1945- By decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the First Main Directorate (PGU) was formed under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Head of PSU - B.L. Vannikov, deputy chiefs - A.P. Zavenyagin, P.Ya. Antropov, N.A. Borisov, A.G. Kasatkin and P.Ya. Meshik, members of the collegium of PSU - A.N. Komarovsky, G.P. Korsakov and S.E. Egorov.

September 1945- Start joint work for exploration of uranium deposits and uranium mining in East Germany.

October 8, 1945- Decision of the Technical Council of the Special Committee on the establishment of Laboratory No. 3 (now ITEP, Moscow) for the development of heavy water reactors (Director - A.I. Alikhanov).

October 17, 1945- Agreement with the Government of Bulgaria on the exploration and production of uranium ores.

November 23, 1945- An agreement with Czechoslovakia on the extraction and supply of uranium ore from the Yakhimovskoye deposit.

January 29, 1946- Decision of the UN General Assembly on the establishment of the UN Atomic Energy Commission.

March 1946- Beginning of development of two versions of industrial reactors (chief designer of the vertical reactor scheme - N.A. Dollezhal, chief designer of the horizontal reactor scheme - B.M. Sholkovich).

March 21, 1946- Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the establishment of special prizes for scientific discoveries and technical achievements in the use of atomic energy.

April 9, 1946- Decree of the Government of the USSR on the creation of KB-11 (Arzamas-16, now RFNC-VNIIEF, Sarov), a center for the development of atomic weapons (director - P.M. Zernov, chief designer and scientific supervisor - Yu.B. Khariton).

April 1946- Decree of the Government of the USSR on the creation of nuclear explosion diagnostic tools at the Institute of Chemical Physics (supervisor of the work - M.A. Sadovsky).

June 19, 1946- The Soviet Union submitted to the UN Atomic Energy Commission proposals for an international convention "On the Prohibition of the Production and Use of Atomic Weapons."

June 21, 1946- Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the plan for the deployment of KB-11 to create two versions of the atomic bomb based on plutonium and uranium-235. The resolution ordered to develop and present for State tests a plutonium-based air bomb by March 1, 1948, and a uranium-235 air bomb by January 1, 1949.

1946 - Creation at the Radium Institute of technology for reprocessing irradiated reactor fuel and separating plutonium from it (supervisor VG Khlopin).

April 21, 1947- Decree of the Government of the USSR on the creation of a test site (Mountain Station, Training Site No. 2, Semipalatinsk Test Site) for testing an atomic bomb (head of the test site - P.M. Rozhanovich, scientific supervisor - M.A. Sadovsky).

September 15, 1947- Agreement with the Government of Poland on the exploration and production of uranium ores.

1947 - The beginning of the formation of units of KB-11.

June 10, 1948- Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on supplementing the work plan of KB-11. This Decree obliged KB-11 to carry out before January 1, 1949 a theoretical and experimental verification of the data on the possibility of creating new types of atomic bombs:

RDS-3 - an atomic bomb based on the implosion principle of a "solid" design using a combination of Pu-239 and U-235 materials;

RDS-4 - an atomic bomb based on the principle of implosion of an improved design using Pu-239;

RDS-5 - an atomic bomb based on the implosion principle of an improved design using a combination of Pu-239 and U-235 materials.

After the refusal to create a cannon-type atomic bomb RDS-2 based on U-235, the indices of these nuclear charges were changed. The same decree obliged KB-11 by June 1, 1949 to conduct a theoretical and experimental verification of data on the possibility of creating hydrogen bomb RDS-6.

June 10, 1948- The Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On strengthening KB-11 with leading design personnel” was approved by K.I. Shchelkin as the first deputy chief designer, V.I. Alferova and N.L. Dukhov - deputy chief designer.

June 15, 1948- The industrial reactor - object "A" of plant No. 817 - was brought to its design capacity.

August 15, 1948- Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the development of questions on the possibilities of creating means to counter nuclear weapons based on the use of high-energy neutral and charged particle flows (Institute of Chemical Physics, Physics Institute, Laboratory No. 2).

March 3, 1949- Decree of the Government of the USSR on the creation of the first serial plant for the production of atomic weapons (now EMZ "Avangard", Sarov).

April 1949- Launch of the first research reactor on natural uranium and heavy water (Thermotechnical Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, ITEP).

August 29, 1949- test of the first atomic bomb RDS-1. (7 am local time, 4 am Moscow time).

October 28, 1949- L.P. Beria reported to I.V. Stalin on the results of testing the first atomic bomb.

The fathers of the atomic bomb are officially recognized as the American Robert Oppenheimer and the Soviet scientist Igor Kurchatov. But in parallel deadly weapon developed in other countries (Italy, Denmark, Hungary), so the discovery rightfully belongs to everyone.

The German physicists Fritz Strassmann and Otto Hahn were the first to tackle this issue, who in December 1938 for the first time managed to artificially split the atomic nucleus of uranium. And six months later, at the Kummersdorf test site near Berlin, the first reactor was already being built and urgently purchased uranium ore from the Congo.

"Uranium project" - the Germans start and lose

In September 1939, the Uranium Project was classified. 22 reputable scientific centers were attracted to participate in the program, the research was supervised by the Minister of Armaments Albert Speer. The construction of an isotope separation plant and the production of uranium for extracting an isotope from it that supports a chain reaction was entrusted to the IG Farbenindustry concern.

For two years, a group of the venerable scientist Heisenberg studied the possibilities of creating a reactor with and heavy water. A potential explosive (the isotope uranium-235) could be isolated from uranium ore.

But for this, an inhibitor is needed that slows down the reaction - graphite or heavy water. The choice of the last option created an insurmountable problem.

The only plant for the production of heavy water, which was located in Norway, after the occupation was put out of action by local resistance fighters, and small stocks of valuable raw materials were taken to France.

The rapid implementation of the nuclear program was also prevented by the explosion of an experimental nuclear reactor in Leipzig.

Hitler supported the uranium project as long as he hoped to obtain a super-powerful weapon that could influence the outcome of the war he unleashed. After the cuts in public funding, the programs of work continued for some time.

In 1944, Heisenberg managed to create cast uranium plates, and a special bunker was built for the reactor plant in Berlin.

It was planned to complete the experiment to achieve a chain reaction in January 1945, but a month later the equipment was urgently transported to the Swiss border, where it was deployed only a month later. In a nuclear reactor there were 664 cubes of uranium weighing 1525 kg. It was surrounded by a graphite neutron reflector weighing 10 tons, an additional one and a half tons of heavy water was loaded into the core.

On March 23, the reactor finally started working, but the report to Berlin was premature: critical point the reactor did not reach, and the chain reaction did not start. Additional calculations have shown that the mass of uranium must be increased by at least 750 kg, proportionally adding the amount of heavy water.

But the reserves of strategic raw materials were at the limit, as was the fate of the Third Reich. On April 23, the Americans entered the village of Haigerloch, where the tests were carried out. The military dismantled the reactor and transported it to the United States.

The first atomic bombs in the USA

A little later, the Germans took up the development of the atomic bomb in the United States and Great Britain. It all started with a letter from Albert Einstein and his co-authors, immigrant physicists, sent by them in September 1939 to US President Franklin Roosevelt.

The appeal emphasized that Nazi Germany close to building an atomic bomb.

Stalin first learned about the work on nuclear weapons (both allies and opponents) from intelligence officers in 1943. They immediately decided to create a similar project in the USSR. The instructions were issued not only to scientists, but also to intelligence, for which the extraction of any information about nuclear secrets has become a super task.

The invaluable information about the developments of American scientists, which Soviet intelligence officers managed to obtain, significantly advanced the domestic nuclear project. It helped our scientists avoid inefficient search paths and significantly speed up the implementation of the final goal.

Serov Ivan Aleksandrovich - head of the operation to create a bomb

Certainly, Soviet government could not ignore the successes of German nuclear physicists. After the war, a group was sent to Germany Soviet physicists- future academicians in the form of colonels of the Soviet army.

Ivan Serov, the first deputy commissar of internal affairs, was appointed head of the operation, which allowed scientists to open any doors.

In addition to their German colleagues, they found reserves of uranium metal. This, according to Kurchatov, reduced the development time Soviet bomb for at least a year. More than one ton of uranium and leading nuclear specialists were also taken out of Germany by the American military.

Not only chemists and physicists were sent to the USSR, but also skilled labor - mechanics, electricians, glass blowers. Some employees were found in POW camps. AT total about 1000 people worked on the Soviet nuclear project German specialists.

German scientists and laboratories on the territory of the USSR in the postwar years

A uranium centrifuge and other equipment were transported from Berlin, as well as documents and reagents from the von Ardenne laboratory and the Kaiser Institute of Physics. As part of the program, laboratories "A", "B", "C", "D" were created, which were headed by German scientists.

The head of laboratory "A" was Baron Manfred von Ardenne, who developed a method for gaseous diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge.

For the creation of such a centrifuge (only on an industrial scale) in 1947, he received the Stalin Prize. At that time, the laboratory was located in Moscow, on the site of the famous Kurchatov Institute. The team of each German scientist included 5-6 Soviet specialists.

Later, laboratory "A" was taken to Sukhumi, where a physico-technical institute was created on its basis. In 1953, Baron von Ardenne became a Stalin laureate for the second time.

Laboratory "B", which conducted experiments in the field of radiation chemistry in the Urals, was headed by Nikolaus Riehl - key person project. There, in Snezhinsk, the talented Russian geneticist Timofeev-Resovsky worked with him, with whom they were friends back in Germany. The successful test of the atomic bomb brought Riel the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Stalin Prize.

The research of laboratory "B" in Obninsk was led by Professor Rudolf Pose, a pioneer in the field of nuclear testing. His team managed to create fast neutron reactors, the first nuclear power plant in the USSR, and designs for reactors for submarines.

On the basis of the laboratory, the A.I. Leipunsky. Until 1957, the professor worked in Sukhumi, then in Dubna, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Technologies.

Laboratory "G", located in the Sukhumi sanatorium "Agudzery", was headed by Gustav Hertz. The nephew of a famous 19th-century scientist gained fame after a series of experiments that confirmed the ideas quantum mechanics and the theory of Niels Bohr.

The results of his productive work in Sukhumi were used to create an industrial plant in Novouralsk, where in 1949 they made the filling of the first Soviet bomb RDS-1.

The uranium bomb that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima was a cannon-type bomb. When creating the RDS-1, domestic nuclear physicists were guided by the Fat Boy, the “Nagasaki bomb”, made from plutonium according to the implosive principle.

In 1951, Hertz was awarded the Stalin Prize for his fruitful work.

German engineers and scientists lived in comfortable houses, they brought their families, furniture, paintings from Germany, they were provided with a decent salary and special food. Did they have the status of prisoners? According to academician A.P. Alexandrov, an active participant in the project, they were all prisoners in such conditions.

Having received permission to return to their homeland, the German specialists signed a non-disclosure agreement about their participation in the Soviet atomic project for 25 years. In the GDR, they continued to work in their specialty. Baron von Ardenne was twice a laureate of the German National Prize.

The professor headed the Physics Institute in Dresden, which was created under the auspices of the Scientific Council for the Peaceful Applications of Atomic Energy. supervised Scientific Council Gustav Hertz, who received the National Prize of the GDR for his three-volume textbook on atomic physics. Here in Dresden Technical University, Professor Rudolf Pose also worked.

The participation of German specialists in the Soviet atomic project, as well as the achievements of Soviet intelligence, do not diminish the merits of Soviet scientists, who, with their heroic labor, created domestic atomic weapons. And yet, without the contribution of each project participant, the creation of the nuclear industry and nuclear bomb stretched out into indefinite

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Research in the field of nuclear physics in the USSR has been carried out since 1918. In 1937, the first cyclotron in Europe was launched at the Radium Institute in Leningrad. On November 25, 1938, by a decree of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences (AN) of the USSR, a permanent commission on the atomic nucleus was established. It included Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov, Abram Iofe, Abram Alikhanov, Igor Kurchatov and others (in 1940 they were joined by Vitaly Khlopin and Isai Gurevich). By this time, nuclear research was carried out in more than ten scientific institutes. In the same year, the Commission on Heavy Water was formed at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, later transformed into the Commission on Isotopes.

The first atomic bomb was given the designation RDS-1. This name comes from a government decree, where the atomic bomb was coded as "special jet engine", abbreviated as RDS. The designation RDS-1 became widely used after the testing of the first atomic bomb and was deciphered in different ways: "Stalin's jet engine", "Russia makes itself."

In September 1939, construction began on a powerful cyclotron in Leningrad, and in April 1940 it was decided to build a pilot plant for the production of approximately 15 kg of heavy water per year. But due to the outbreak of war, these plans were not realized. In May 1940, N. Semenov, Ya. Zel'dovich, Yu. Khariton (Institute of Chemical Physics) proposed a theory of the development of a nuclear chain reaction in uranium. In the same year, work was accelerated to search for new deposits of uranium ores. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, many physicists already imagined how in general terms should look like an atomic bomb. The idea is to quickly concentrate in one place a certain (more critical mass) the amount of fissile under the action of neutrons (with the emission of new neutrons) material. After that, an avalanche-like increase in the number of decays of atoms will begin in it - a chain reaction with the release huge amount energy will explode. The problem was to obtain a sufficient amount of fissile material. The only such substance found in nature in acceptable quantities is an isotope of uranium with mass number(total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus) 235 (uranium-235). In natural uranium, the content of this isotope does not exceed 0.71% (99.28% uranium-238). natural uranium in ore in best case is 1%. Separation of uranium-235 from natural uranium was enough difficult problem. The alternative to uranium, as it soon became clear, was plutonium-239. It practically does not occur in nature (it is 100 times less than uranium-235). It is possible to obtain it in an acceptable concentration in nuclear reactors by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons. The construction of such a reactor presented another problem.

The explosion of RDS-1 on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site. The power of the bomb was more than 20 kt. The 37-meter tower, on which the bomb was installed, was erased, and a funnel 3 m in diameter and 1.5 m deep formed under it, covered with a melted glass-like substance.

The third problem was how it is possible to collect in one place the necessary mass of fissile material. In the process of even a very rapid approach of subcritical parts, fission reactions begin in them. The energy released in this case may not allow most of the atoms to "take part" in the fission process, and they will fly apart without having time to react.

In 1940, V. Spinel and V. Maslov from the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology filed an application for the invention of an atomic munition based on the use of a chain reaction of spontaneous fission of the supercritical mass of uranium-235, which is formed from several subcritical ones, separated by an explosive impervious to neutrons, destroyed by detonation ( although the "operability" of such a charge is highly doubtful, a certificate for the invention was nevertheless received, but only in 1946). The Americans for their first bombs intended to use the so-called cannon scheme. It actually used a cannon barrel with the help of which one subcritical part of the fissile material was fired into another (it soon became clear that such a scheme was not suitable for plutonium due to insufficient convergence speed).

On April 15, 1941, the Council issued a resolution People's Commissars(SNK) on the construction of a powerful cyclotron in Moscow. But after the start of the Great Patriotic War, almost all work in the field of nuclear physics was stopped. Many nuclear physicists ended up at the front or were refocused on other, as it seemed then, more pressing topics.

Since 1939, both the GRU of the Red Army and the 1st Directorate of the NKVD have been collecting information on the nuclear issue. The first message about plans to create an atomic bomb came from D. Cairncross in October 1940. This issue was discussed in the British Science Committee, where Cairncross worked. In the summer of 1941, the Tube Alloys project to create an atomic bomb was approved. By the beginning of the war, England was one of the leaders in nuclear research, largely due to German scientists who fled here when Hitler came to power, one of them was a member of the KKE K. Fuchs. In the autumn of 1941, he went to the Soviet embassy and reported that he had important information about a powerful new weapon. To communicate with him, S. Kramer and radio operator "Sonya" - R. Kuchinskaya were singled out. The first radiograms to Moscow contained information about the gas diffusion method for separating uranium isotopes and about a plant in Wales being built for this purpose. After six transmissions, communication with Fuchs was interrupted. At the end of 1943 Soviet spy in the USA Semenov ("Twain") reported that in Chicago E. Fermi carried out the first chain nuclear reaction. The information came from the physicist Pontecorvo. At the same time, closed scientific works of Western scientists on atomic energy for 1940-1942 were received from England through foreign intelligence. They confirmed that great progress had been made in building the atomic bomb. Wife also worked for intelligence famous sculptor Konenkov, who, having become close to the largest physicists Oppenheimer and Einstein long time influenced them. Another resident in the United States, L. Zarubina, found a way to L. Szilard and was a member of Oppenheimer's circle of people. With their help, it was possible to introduce reliable agents in Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and the Chicago Laboratory - centers of American nuclear research. In 1944, information on the American atomic bomb was transmitted to Soviet intelligence by: K. Fuchs, T. Hall, S. Sake, B. Pontecorvo, D. Greenglass and the Rosenbergs.

In early February 1944, the People's Commissar of the NKVD, L. Beria, held an extended meeting of the First Soviet Nuclear Bomb and its chief designer, Yu. Khariton, of the heads of the NKVD intelligence. During the meeting, a decision was made to coordinate the collection of information on the atomic problem. coming through the NKVD and the GRU of the Red Army. and its generalizations create a "C" department. On September 27, 1945, the department was organized, the leadership was entrusted to the commissioner of the State Security P. Sudoplatov. In January 1945, Fuchs transmitted a description of the design of the first atomic bomb. Among other things, intelligence obtained materials on the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes, data on the operation of the first reactors, specifications for the production of uranium and plutonium bombs, data on the design of the system of focusing explosive lenses and the size of the critical mass of uranium and plutonium, on plutonium-240, on time and sequence operations for the manufacture and assembly of the bomb, the method of actuating the bomb initiator; on the construction of isotope separation plants, as well as diary entries about the first test explosion of an American bomb in July 1945.

Information coming through intelligence channels facilitated and accelerated the work of Soviet scientists. Western experts believed that the atomic bomb in the USSR could be created no earlier than in 1954-1955, but its first test took place already in August 1949.

In April 1942, the people's commissar of the chemical industry M. Pervukhin, by order of Stalin, was acquainted with the materials on the work on the atomic bomb abroad. Pervukhin proposed to select a group of specialists to evaluate the information presented in this report. On the recommendation of Ioffe, the group included young scientists Kurchatov, Alikhanov and I. Kikoin. On November 27, 1942, the State Defense Committee issued a resolution “On uranium mining”. The resolution provided for the creation of a special institute and the start of work on exploration, extraction and processing of raw materials. Beginning in 1943, the People's Commissariat for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy (NKCM) began mining and processing uranium ore at the Tabashar mine in Tajikistan with a plan of 4 tons of uranium salts per year. At the beginning of 1943, the previously mobilized scientists were recalled from the front.

In pursuance of the GKO resolution, on February 11, 1943, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was organized, headed by Kurchatov (in 1949 it was renamed the Laboratory of Measuring Instruments of the USSR Academy of Sciences - LIPAN, in 1956 the Institute of Atomic Energy was created on its basis, and at present time is the RRC "Kurchatov Institute"), which was supposed to coordinate all work on the implementation of the nuclear project.

In 1944, Soviet intelligence received a guide to uranium-graphite reactors, which contained very valuable information on determining the parameters of the reactor. But the uranium needed to load even a small experimental nuclear reactor in the country did not yet exist. On September 28, 1944, the government ordered the USSR NKCM to hand over uranium and uranium salts to the State Fund and assigned the task of storing them to Laboratory No. 2. In November 1944 large group Soviet specialists, under the leadership of the head of the 4th special department of the NKVD V. Kravchenko, went to liberated Bulgaria to study the results of geological exploration of the Gotenskoye deposit. On December 8, 1944, a GKO decree was issued on the transfer of mining and processing of uranium ores from the NKMTs to the jurisdiction of the NKVD of the 9th Directorate, created in the Main Directorate of Mining and Metallurgical Enterprises (GU GMP). In March 1945, Major General S. Yegorov, who had previously held the position of deputy. Head of the Main Directorate of Dalstroy. In January 1945, as part of the 9th Directorate, on the basis of separate laboratories of the State Institute of Rare Metals (Giredmet) and one of the defense plants, NII-9 (now VNIINM) was organized to study uranium deposits, solve the problems of processing uranium raw materials, obtaining metallic uranium and plutonium . By this time, about one and a half tons of uranium ore per week were coming from Bulgaria.

Since March 1945, after information about the atomic bomb scheme based on the principle of implosion (compression of fissile material by an explosion of a conventional explosive) came through the channels of the NKGB from the United States, work began on new scheme which had obvious advantages over cannon. In a note by V. Makhanev to Beria in April 1945 on the timing of the creation of an atomic bomb, it was said that the diffusion plant at Laboratory No. 2 for producing uranium-235 was supposed to be launched in 1947. Its productivity was supposed to be 25 kg of uranium per year, which should have been enough for two bombs (in fact, 65 kg of uranium-235 was required for the American uranium bomb).

During the battles for Berlin on May 5, 1945, the property of the Physical Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was discovered. On May 9, a commission headed by A. Zavenyagin was sent to Germany to search for scientists who worked there on the Uranium project and to accept materials on the uranium problem. A large group of German scientists was taken to the Soviet Union along with their families. Among them were Nobel laureates G. Hertz and N. Riehl, I. Kurchatov, professors R. Deppel, M. Vollmer, G. Pose, P. Thyssen, M. von Ardene, Gaib (only about two hundred specialists, 33 of them are doctors of science).

The creation of a nuclear explosive device using plutonium-239 required the construction of an industrial nuclear reactor for its development. Even for a small experimental reactor about 36 tons of metallic uranium, 9 tons of uranium dioxide and about 500 tons of the purest graphite were required. If the graphite problem was solved by August 1943, it was possible to develop and master a special technological process to obtain graphite of the required purity, and in May 1944 its production was launched at the Moscow Electrode Plant, then by the end of 1945 the country did not have the required amount of uranium. The first specifications for the manufacture of uranium dioxide and uranium metal for a research reactor were issued by Kurchatov in November 1944. In parallel with the creation of uranium-graphite reactors, work was carried out on reactors based on uranium and heavy water. The question arises why it was necessary to “disperse forces” in such a way and move simultaneously in several directions? Justifying the need for this, Kurchatov in his Report in 1947 cites the following figures. The number of bombs that could be obtained from 1000 tons of uranium ore by different methods is 20 using a uranium-graphite boiler, 50 using a diffusion method, 70 using an electromagnetic method, and 40 using "heavy" water. At the same time, boilers with “heavy” water, although they have a number of significant drawbacks, have the advantage that they allow the use of thorium. Thus, although the uranium-graphite boiler made it possible to create an atomic bomb in the shortest possible time, it had the worst result in terms of the completeness of the use of raw materials. Taking into account the experience of the United States, where gas diffusion was chosen from the four methods of uranium separation studied, on December 21, 1945, the government decided to build combines No. 813 (now the Ural Electro-Mechanical Plant in Novouralsk) to produce highly enriched uranium-235 by gas diffusion and (Chelyabinsk-40, now the chemical plant "Mayak" in the city of Ozersk) to produce plutonium.

In the spring of 1948, the two-year period allotted by Stalin for the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb expired. But by this time, not only bombs, there were no fissile materials for its production. By a government decree of February 8, 1948, a new deadline for the manufacture of the RDS-1 bomb was set - March 1, 1949.

The first industrial reactor "A" at Combine No. 817 was launched on June 19, 1948 (on June 22, 1948 it reached its design capacity and was decommissioned only in 1987). To separate the produced plutonium from nuclear fuel, a radiochemical plant (Plant B) was built as part of Combine No. 817. The irradiated uranium blocks were dissolved and plutonium was separated from uranium by chemical methods. concentrated solution plutonium was subjected to additional purification from highly active fission products in order to reduce its radiation activity upon receipt by metallurgists. In April 1949, Plant V began manufacturing plutonium bomb parts using the NII-9 technology. At the same time, the first heavy water research reactor was launched. The development of the production of fissile materials was difficult with numerous accidents during the elimination of the consequences of which there were cases of overexposure of personnel (then no attention was paid to such trifles). By July, a set of parts for the plutonium charge was ready. For physical measurements a group of physicists led by Flerov went to the plant, and a group of theorists led by Zel'dovich went to the plant to process the results of these measurements, calculate the efficiency and the probability of an incomplete explosion.

On August 5, 1949, a plutonium charge was accepted by a commission headed by Khariton and sent by letter train to KB-11. By this time, work on the creation of an explosive device was almost completed here. Here, on the night of August 10-11, a control assembly of a nuclear charge was carried out, which received the index 501 for the RDS-1 atomic bomb. After that, the device was dismantled, the parts were inspected, packed and prepared for shipment to the landfill. Thus, the Soviet atomic bomb was made in 2 years 8 months (in the USA it took 2 years 7 months).

The test of the first Soviet nuclear charge 501 was carried out on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site (the device was located on the tower). The power of the explosion was 22 kt. The design of the charge repeated the American "Fat Man", although the electronic filling was of Soviet design. The atomic charge was a multilayer structure in which plutonium was transferred to a critical state by compression by a converging spherical detonation wave. In the center of the charge was placed 5 kg of plutonium, in the form of two hollow hemispheres, surrounded by a massive shell of uranium-238 (tamper). This shell The first Soviet nuclear bomb - the scheme served for inertial containment of the nucleus swelling in the process of a chain reaction, so that as much as possible most of plutonium had time to react and, in addition, served as a neutron reflector and moderator (neutrons with low energies are most effectively absorbed by plutonium nuclei, causing them to fission). The tamper was surrounded by an aluminum shell, which ensured uniform compression of the nuclear charge by the shock wave. A neutron initiator (fuse) was installed in the cavity of the plutonium core - a beryllium ball with a diameter of about 2 cm, covered with a thin layer of polonium-210. When the nuclear charge of the bomb is compressed, the nuclei of polonium and beryllium approach each other, and alpha particles emitted by radioactive polonium-210 knock out neutrons from beryllium, which initiate a chain nuclear fission reaction of plutonium-239. One of the most complex knots was an explosive charge consisting of two layers. The inner layer It consisted of two hemispherical bases made of an alloy of TNT with RDX, the outer one was assembled from separate elements that had different detonation velocities. The outer layer, designed to form a spherical converging detonation wave at the base of the explosive, was called the focusing system.

For safety reasons, the installation of the node containing fissile material was carried out immediately before the charge was applied. To do this, in the spherical charge of explosives there was a through conical hole, which was closed with a plug of explosives, and in the outer and internal buildings there were openings covered with lids. The power of the explosion was due to the fission of the nuclei of about a kilogram of plutonium, the remaining 4 kg did not have time to react and was uselessly sprayed. During the implementation of the RDS-1 creation program, many new ideas arose for improving nuclear charges (increasing the utilization factor of fissile material, reducing dimensions and weight). New samples of charges have become more powerful, more compact and "smarter" than the first.

The first Soviet charge for an atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakhstan).

This event was preceded by a long and hard work physicists. The beginning of work on nuclear fission in the USSR can be considered the 1920s. Since the 1930s, nuclear physics has become one of the main areas of Russian science. physical science, and in October 1940, for the first time in the USSR, a group of Soviet scientists made a proposal to use atomic energy for weapons purposes, submitting an application "On the use of uranium as an explosive and poisonous substance" to the Red Army Invention Department.

The war that began in June 1941 and the evacuation of scientific institutes involved in the problems of nuclear physics interrupted work on the creation of atomic weapons in the country. But already in the autumn of 1941, the USSR began to receive intelligence information about the conduct of intensive secret research work in the UK and the USA aimed at developing methods for using atomic energy for military purposes and creating explosives of enormous destructive power.

This information forced, despite the war, to resume work on uranium in the USSR. On September 28, 1942, the secret decree of the State Defense Committee No. 2352ss "On the organization of work on uranium" was signed, according to which research on the use of atomic energy was resumed.

In February 1943 supervisor work on the atomic problem was appointed Igor Kurchatov. In Moscow, headed by Kurchatov, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute") was created, which began to study atomic energy.

Initially general leadership The atomic problem was carried out by Vyacheslav Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR. But on August 20, 1945 (a few days after the US atomic bombing Japanese cities) The GKO decided to create a Special Committee, headed by Lavrenty Beria. He became the curator of the Soviet atomic project.

At the same time, for the direct management of research, design, design organizations and industrial enterprises engaged in the Soviet nuclear project, the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (later the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, now the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom") was created. The head of PSU was the former People's Commissar ammunition Boris Vannikov.

In April 1946, at Laboratory No. 2, a design department KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNIIEF) is one of the most secret enterprises for the development of domestic nuclear weapons, whose chief designer was Yuli Khariton. Plant N 550 was chosen as the base for the deployment of KB-11 People's Commissariat ammunition, which fired shells of artillery shells.

The top-secret object was located 75 kilometers from the city of Arzamas (Gorky region, now Nizhny Novgorod region) on the territory of the former Sarov monastery.

KB-11 was tasked with creating an atomic bomb in two versions. In the first of them, the working substance should be plutonium, in the second - uranium-235. In the middle of 1948, work on the uranium version was discontinued due to its relatively low efficiency compared to the cost of nuclear materials.

The first domestic atomic bomb had the official designation RDS-1. It was deciphered in different ways: “Russia does it itself”, “The Motherland gives Stalin”, etc. But in the official decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of June 21, 1946, it was encrypted as “Special Jet Engine (“C”).

The creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out taking into account the available materials according to the scheme of the US plutonium bomb tested in 1945. These materials were provided by the Soviet foreign intelligence. An important source of information was Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist, a participant in the work on the US and UK nuclear programs.

Intelligence materials on the American plutonium charge for the atomic bomb made it possible to shorten the time for the creation of the first Soviet charge, although many of the technical solutions of the American prototype were not the best. Even on early stages Soviet specialists could offer best solutions both the charge as a whole and its individual nodes. Therefore, the first charge for an atomic bomb tested by the USSR was more primitive and less effective than the original version of the charge proposed by Soviet scientists in early 1949. But in order to guarantee and in a short time to show that the USSR also possesses atomic weapons, it was decided to use a charge created according to the American scheme at the first test.

The charge for the RDS-1 atomic bomb was a multilayer structure in which the transition of the active substance - plutonium to the supercritical state was carried out by compressing it by means of a converging spherical detonation wave in the explosive.

RDS-1 was an aviation atomic bomb weighing 4.7 tons, 1.5 meters in diameter and 3.3 meters long. It was developed in relation to the Tu-4 aircraft, the bomb bay of which allowed the placement of a "product" with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters. Plutonium was used as the fissile material in the bomb.

For production atomic charge bombs in the city of Chelyabinsk-40 on Southern Urals In 1997, a plant was built under the conditional number 817 (now the Mayak Production Association).

The plant's reactor 817 was brought to its design capacity in June 1948, and a year later the enterprise received required amount plutonium to make the first charge for the atomic bomb.

The site for the test site, where it was planned to test the charge, was chosen in the Irtysh steppe, about 170 kilometers west of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. A plain with a diameter of about 20 kilometers was allotted for the test site, surrounded from the south, west and north by low mountains. To the east of this space were small hills.

The construction of the training ground, which was called training ground No. 2 of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR (later the Ministry of Defense of the USSR), was started in 1947, and by July 1949 it was basically completed.

For testing at the test site, an experimental site with a diameter of 10 kilometers, divided into sectors, was prepared. It was equipped with special facilities to ensure testing, observation and registration of physical research. In the center of the experimental field, a metal lattice tower 37.5 meters high was mounted, designed to install the RDS-1 charge. At a distance of one kilometer from the center, an underground building was built for equipment that registers light, neutron and gamma fluxes of a nuclear explosion. To study the impact of a nuclear explosion on the experimental field, sections of metro tunnels, fragments of airfield runways were built, samples of aircraft, tanks, artillery rocket launchers, ship superstructures were placed various types. To ensure the operation of the physical sector, 44 structures were built at the site and a cable network was laid with a length of 560 kilometers.

In June-July 1949, two groups of KB-11 workers with auxiliary equipment and household equipment were sent to the test site, and on July 24 a group of specialists arrived there, which was to be directly involved in preparing the atomic bomb for testing.

On August 5, 1949, the government commission for testing the RDS-1 issued a conclusion on the complete readiness of the test site.

On August 21, a plutonium charge and four neutron fuses were delivered to the test site by a special train, one of which was to be used to detonate a military product.

On August 24, 1949, Kurchatov arrived at the training ground. By August 26, all preparatory work at the landfill was completed. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, ordered the testing of the RDS-1 on August 29 at eight o'clock in the morning local time and the conduct of preparatory operations starting at eight o'clock in the morning on August 27.

On the morning of August 27, the assembly of a combat product began near the central tower. On the afternoon of August 28, the bombers carried out the last full inspection of the tower, prepared the automation for the explosion and checked the demolition cable line.

At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 28, a plutonium charge and neutron fuses were delivered to the workshop near the tower. The final installation of the charge was completed by three o'clock in the morning on August 29. At four o'clock in the morning, the fitters rolled the product out of the assembly shop along the rail track and installed it in the tower's cargo lift cage, and then raised the charge to the top of the tower. By six o'clock, the equipment of the charge with fuses and its connection to the subversive circuit was completed. Then the evacuation of all people from the test field began.

In connection with the worsening weather, Kurchatov decided to postpone the explosion from 8.00 to 7.00.

At 6.35 the operators turned on the power of the automation system. 12 minutes before the explosion, the field machine was turned on. 20 seconds before the explosion, the operator turned on the main connector (switch), connecting the product with the automatic control system. From that moment on, all operations were performed by an automatic device. Six seconds before the explosion, the main mechanism of the automaton turned on the power supply of the product and part of the field devices, and one second turned on all the other devices, gave a detonation signal.

Exactly at seven o'clock on August 29, 1949, the whole area was lit up with a blinding light, which marked that the USSR had successfully completed the development and testing of its first charge for an atomic bomb.

The charge power was 22 kilotons of TNT.

20 minutes after the explosion, two tanks equipped with lead shielding were sent to the center of the field to conduct radiation reconnaissance and inspect the center of the field. The reconnaissance found that all structures in the center of the field had been demolished. A funnel gaped in place of the tower, the soil in the center of the field melted, and a continuous crust of slag formed. Civil buildings and industrial facilities were completely or partially destroyed.

The equipment used in the experiment made it possible to carry out optical observations and measurements heat flow, parameters of the shock wave, characteristics of neutron and gamma radiation, determine the level of radioactive contamination of the area in the area of ​​the explosion and along the trail of the explosion cloud, study the impact damaging factors nuclear explosion on biological objects.

For the successful development and testing of a charge for an atomic bomb, several closed decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 29, 1949 awarded orders and medals of the USSR to a large group of leading researchers, designers, and technologists; many were awarded the title of laureates of the Stalin Prize, and more than 30 people received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

As a result of the successful test of the RDS-1, the USSR eliminated the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons, becoming the second nuclear power in the world.