MOSCOW (Dispatches) - Russian security agents have detained the head of an institute researching hypersonic flight, on suspicion of treason, Tass news agency reports.
Alexander Kuranov, an expert on plasma physics, is chief designer at the hypersonic systems institute in St Petersburg, known by the Russian initials NIPGS.
Russia is developing hypersonic missiles, which fly at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
A similar case was reported in 2018.
The FSB arrested a top space scientist, Viktor Kudryavtsev, in 2018 and searched several space research facilities, including Moscow’s TsNIIMash, which also studies hypersonic technology.
One of Mr Kuranov’s specialisms, according to the NIPGS website, is a Russian hypersonic program called Ajax (pronounced Ayaks), which involves a space vehicle recycling energy in flight to boost its performance.
For several years Mr Kuranov, 73, has organized a Russian-U.S. symposium for scientific exchanges on aerodynamics and plasma technology. Plasma is superheated matter, so hot that electrons are freed from atoms, forming an ionized gas.
An FSB source quoted by Tass said “investigators plan to ask the court to put him under arrest for two months”.