RDS-37 Soviet hydrogen bomb test (1955)

atomicarchive@ RDS-37 was the Soviet Union’s first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on November 22, 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test. It was a multi-stage thermonuclear device which utilized radiation implosion called Sakharov’s Third Idea in the USSR (the Teller–Ulam design in the USA). It utilized a fissile core containing Uranium-235 and synthetic Uranium-233, and a dry lithium deuteride fusion fuel, wit