Qian Xuesen | Rocket scientist, 98

Qian Xuesen, 98, a rocket scientist known as the father of China's space-technology program, died Saturday in Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Qian, also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, began his career in the United States and was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics before returning to China in 1955, driven out of the United States at the height of anticommunist fervor.

He set up China's first missile and rocket research institute, which later helped start China's space program. He led the development of China's first nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and worked on its first satellite, launched in 1970.

He retired in 1991, the year before China's manned space program was launched. But his research formed the basis for the Long March CZ-2F rocket that carried astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit in 2003.

Qian left for the United States in 1936 after winning a scholarship to graduate school. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later at the California Institute of Technology, where he helped start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During World War II, he helped design ballistic missiles for the U.S. military. - AP