In August 1956, the one-megawatt "swimming-pool" research reactor APSARA was commissioned, making India the first Asian country besides the Soviet Union to have a nuclear reactor. Running on enriched natural uranium fuel supplied by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Commission and thorium, APSARA represented the first stage of Bhabha's plan: it would be useful in producing plutonium. It also allowed Indian nuclear scientists to carry out experiments, whereas national research in atomic energy earlier had been largely theoretical. Bhabha was able to secure favourable terms for India partly due to his friendship with Sir John Cockcroft, who had been his colleague at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge.