George S. May Business Blog

Space shuttle engineer sentenced for spying

Dongfan Chung, former United States space shuttle engineer, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Monday for espionage. A California judge found the man guilty of “economic espionage to benefit a foreign country”. The 74 year old engineer had worked on the Rockwell International space shuttle program before being accused of stealing documents on the shuttle (as well as the Delta IV rocket) with the intent of passing them to Chinese government agents. The prosecution was able to present letters between Chung and members of the Chinese aviation industry, some dating all the way back to 1979, in which he was instructed to gather technical information about the space shuttle and military aircraft.

This marks the second engineer to be arrested for spying in the last 5 months. In October, an engineer was arrested for posing as a member of the Mossad, Israeli Special Intelligence, and trying to sell information to a US agent.

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