Wang Xiji

Wang Xiji was a Chinese rocket engineer who led development of several of China's foundational space launch systems across a career spanning more than half a century. After returning to China in 1950 following graduate study at Virginia Tech, he was appointed chief engineer of the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1958 and led development of the T-7M, China's first sounding rocket, which flew successfully in February 1960 after an earlier failed attempt. He went on to design the Long March 1, China's first orbital space launch vehicle, which placed the country's first satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, into orbit in 1970, and later led China's recoverable satellite program, whose Jian Bing 1 satellite in 1975 made China the third country in the world, after the United States and Soviet Union, to successfully launch and recover a satellite from orbit. An academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the International Academy of Astronautics, he received the Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal in 1999 and in 2016 became the first Chinese engineer inducted into the International Astronautical Federation's Hall of Fame. He died in August 2026 at the age of 105.