Test No. 6 is the codename for China's first test of a
three-staged thermonuclear device and, also its sixth
nuclear weapons test
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...
. It was a part of the "
Two Bombs, One Satellite
Two Bombs, One Satellite () was an early nuclear and space project of the People's Republic of China. ''Two Bombs'' refers to the atomic bomb (and later the hydrogen bomb) and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), while ''One Satellite'' ...
" program.
Development
The device was detonated at
Lop Nur Test Base, or often dubbed as Lop Nur Nuclear Weapon Test Base, in Malan,
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
, on 17 June 1967. With successful testing of this three-stage thermonuclear device, China became the fourth country to have successfully developed a
thermonuclear weapon
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
after the United States,
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and the United Kingdom. It was dropped from a
Xian H-6
The Xian H-6 () is a twin-engine jet bomber of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The H-6 is a license-built version of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 and remains the primary bomber aircraft of the People's Republic of China.
Del ...
(Chinese manufactured
Tu-16
The Tupolev Tu-16 (NATO reporting name: Badger) is a twin-engined jet strategic heavy bomber used by the Soviet Union. It has been flown for almost 70 years, and the Chinese license-built Xian H-6 remains in service with the People's Liberation ...
) of the
36th Air Division
The 36th Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with First Air Force at Topsham Air Force Station, Maine. It was inactivated on 30 September 1969.
History Strategic Air Command
"The 36th Air D ...
and was parachute-retarded for an airburst at 2960 meters.
The bomb was a three-stage device with a boosted
U-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exists ...
primary and
U-238 pusher. The
yield was 3.3
megatons
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 ...
.
The film of the prior 1966 tests have been released, as well as a unidentified later test.
It was a fully functional, full-scale, three-stage
hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
, tested just 32 months after China had made its
first fission device. It remains to date the fastest of any country to successfully develop this capability.
China had received extensive technical help from the Soviet Union to jump-start their nuclear program, but by 1960, the
rift between the Soviet Union and China had become so great that the Soviet Union ceased all assistance to China and refused to help the Chinese government with their nuclear program.
The goal of China was to produce a thermonuclear device of at least a megaton in yield that could be dropped by an aircraft or carried by a ballistic missile. Several explosions to test thermonuclear weapon designs, characteristics and yield boosting preceded the thermonuclear test.
See also
*
Two Bombs, One Satellite
Two Bombs, One Satellite () was an early nuclear and space project of the People's Republic of China. ''Two Bombs'' refers to the atomic bomb (and later the hydrogen bomb) and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), while ''One Satellite'' ...
*
816 Nuclear Military Plant
816 Nuclear Military Plant () is an unfinished Chinese underground nuclear weapons production facility and the largest man-made tunnel structure in the world. A military megaproject, the nuclear base is located near what is now suburban Fuling, a ...
*
List of Chinese nuclear tests
*
List of states with nuclear weapons
Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisi ...
*
Teller–Ulam design
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
References
Citations
Sources
; Books
* Norris, Robert, Burrows, Andrew, Fieldhouse, Richard. ''Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume V, British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons''. San Francisco, CA: Westview Press, 1994. .
{{refend
Cold War weapons of China
Chinese nuclear weapons testing
1967 in China
1967 in military history
History of Xinjiang
June 1967 events in Asia