Place · nuclear research institute · India
Trombay / Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
Also known as BARC, Trombay, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, AEET
India's primary nuclear research facility, founded in 1954 as the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) by Homi Bhabha and renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 1967 after his death. BARC occupies 1,200 hectares on the eastern shore of Mumbai's Trombay creek, operates India's first research reactor (Apsara, 1956 — Asia's first) and the subsequent Cirus, Dhruva, Zerlina and Purnima reactors, and conducts the whole fuel-cycle research from uranium mining to spent-fuel reprocessing. The 1974 Pokhran nuclear test used plutonium produced here, and the Nuclear Power Corporation and the Advanced Technology Vehicle submarine programme both grew from BARC's reactor work.
- Date
- 1954–None
- Function
- Science & medicine
- Tradition
- BARC institutional histories; Atomic Energy Commission records.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 19.007, 72.916
Worth knowing
The site was chosen in 1954 for the deep-water Trombay harbour access and the land was granted by the Bombay government on Bhabha's personal request to Morarji Desai. BARC's Dhruva reactor of 1985 is India's largest research reactor at 100 MW. The 1974 Smiling Buddha device was described officially as a 'peaceful nuclear explosion' and was built from BARC's own fuel-reprocessing output.
Connections (2)
- FoundedHomi J. Bhabha
Homi Bhabha founded the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) in 1954 — later renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his memory after his 1966 death — as India's primary nuclear research facility on the eastern shore of Mumbai's Trombay creek. The site was chosen for its deep-water harbour access, and the land was granted by the Bombay government on Bhabha's personal request to Morarji Desai. The Apsara research reactor there, operational in 1956, was Asia's first.
- Founder ofHomi J. Bhabha
Bhabha founded the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay in 1954 on the peninsula at the eastern edge of Mumbai, and ran it until the Air India crash on Mont Blanc in January 1966. Renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre after his death, Trombay has run every stage of the Indian nuclear fuel cycle since Apsara (1956 — Asia's first reactor).