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Badger was a test of the TX-16 thermonuclear weapon design, the reduced size cryogenic weapon descended from the Sausage device tested in Ivy Mike. The test device was named Buzzard and used a deuterium gas boosted RACER primary. The expected yield was 35-40 kt. The device had a diameter of 56 inches, and weighed 7400 lb. The full scale thermonuclear version of this design was actually deployed on a limited scale for a short time as an "Emergency Capability" weapon in late 1953 and early 1954. Operation Upshot-Knothole was a series of eleven nuclear test shots conducted in 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. The test series was notable as containing the first time an atomic artillery shell was fired (shot Grable), the first two shots (both fizzles) by University of California Radiation Laboratory-Livermore (now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and for testing out some of the thermonuclear components that would be used for the massive thermonuclear series of Operation Castle. Badger was a 300 foot tower shot delivered on April 18, 1953. A bomb tower is a lightly constructed tower, often 100 to 700 feet high, built to hold a nuclear weapon for an above ground nuclear test. The tower holds the bomb for the purpose of the investigation of its destructive effects (such as burst height and distance with given explosive yield) and for the adjustment of measuring instruments, such as high-speed cameras. Normally, the bomb tower disintegrates completely on detonation due to the enormous heat of the explosion.
