‘Father of China’s space technology’ dies
By IANSSaturday, October 31, 2009
BEIJING - China’s space scientist Qian Xuesen, widely known as the father of the country’s space technology, died here Saturday morning at the age of 98, Xinhua news agency reported.
Qian was born in Hangzhou, the capital city of the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. He led many of China’s key missile and space programmes.
A member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, he graduated from Jiao Tong University, Shanghai in 1934, the report said.
In 1935, he went to study in the aviation department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and later studied aviation engineering at the California Institute of Technology. In 1939, he received a doctorate in aviation and mathematics. He returned to China in 1955.
