The RDS-5 (russian: РДС-5) was a
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
based
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
atomic bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
, probably using a hollow core.
Two versions were made. The first version used 2 kg
Pu-239
Plutonium-239 (239Pu or Pu-239) is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium-235 is also used for that purpose. Plutonium-239 is also one of the three main ...
and was expected to yield 9.2
kilotons
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a m ...
. The second version used only 0.8 kg Pu-239
Testing
The two versions of the RDS-5 were tested during a series of 3 tests on September 3, 8 and 10 1953 in the
Semipalatinsk test site
The Semipalatinsk Test Site (Russian language, Russian: Семипалатинск-21; Semipalatinsk-21), also known as "The Polygon", was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast ...
. The test on September 3 (Joe 6.
) was probably of the 2 kg version and achieved a yield of 5.8 kilotons (compared to the expected 9.2 kiloton yield). The test on September 8 was probably of the 0.8 kg version and yielded 1.6 kilotons.
See also
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Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Although the Soviet scientific community dis ...
*
RDS-1
The RDS-1 (russian: РДС-1), also known as Izdeliye 501 (device 501) and First Lightning (), was the nuclear bomb used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. The United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph S ...
References
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Bombs