Project 596L

596L
The cloud beginning to mushroom following air drop detonation
Information
Country	China
Test site	Lop Nur Test Base
Date	May 9, 1966
Test type	Atmospheric
Device type	Layer cake design
Yield	220 kilotons of TNT (920 TJ)
Test chronology
← 596 639 →

596L (CHIC-3 by US intelligence) was the third nuclear weapon test conducted by the People's Republic of China. Detonated on May 9, 1966, at Lop Nur, it was the first Chinese test to use thermonuclear reactions in a layer cake design, and yielded 220 kilotons of TNT. As part of the Two Bombs, One Satellite project, it was conducted as a physics experiment to verify computational simulation for China's development of true (multi-stage) thermonuclear weapons.^[1]