The bombs were prepared by the US Atomic Energy Commission and Defense Department aboard naval vessels, and were capable of being detonated remotely from the control ship Estes.

[1] The first Ivy shot, codenamed Mike, was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon ("hydrogen bomb") using the Teller-Ulam design.

Unlike later thermonuclear weapons, Mike used deuterium as its fusion fuel, maintained as a liquid by an expensive and cumbersome cryogenic system.

The outcome of the test was reported to incoming president Eisenhower by Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Gordon Dean, as follows: “The island of Elugelab is missing!”[citation needed] Four USAF F-84G Thunderjets equipped with filters were flown through the mushroom cloud's stem to collect radiochemical samples for analysis.

After re-emerging from the cloud, both he and his wingman, pilot Captain Bob Hagan, encountered difficulties picking up rendezvous and runway navigational beacons due to "electromagnetic after effects" of the detonation.

As a result of the collection of samples from the explosion by U.S. Air Force pilots, scientists found traces of the isotopes plutonium-246 and plutonium-244, and confirmed the existence of the predicted but undiscovered elements einsteinium and fermium.