Ground-penetrating bomb impact frozen in time

[Nipuna]

(Image: Sandia National Laboratories)

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For the first time in six years, a ground-penetrating nuclear bomb has been flight-tested – but with no big boom, because its nuclear components were removed. These images from a high-speed video capture the B61-11's powerful impact.

This sacrificial bomb was chosen randomly from the US stockpile of nukes, then fitted with sensors and cooled to the freezing temperatures that it would experience when strapped to an airplane. Engineers at the remote Coyote Canyon test range in New Mexico lifted the weapon up high before igniting a powerful rocket sled to drive it into a concrete target below.

Flight tests like this one measure how well a bomb responds to factors like shock, vibration and weather. The target is adorned with scattered spots to help engineers analyse the test unit's path as it crashes down.

"One of the main purposes of the stockpile is deterrence, so one important way to assure deterrence is to have a successful surveillance test that shows our systems work," says Patrick Sena of Sandia National Laboratories.

Sandia hasn't performed any tests like this since October 2008, when the motor unexpectedly fired at their rocket sled track, severely injuring one employee. Since then, Sandia has changed its testing procedures.

Read more about things that go boom in our weapons technology topic guide.