Fergie's Tech Blog

Former Boeing Engineer Convicted in Theft of Space Shuttle Secrets for China

Louis Chunovic writes on GSN.com:

A former Rockwell and Boeing engineer, who held a "secret" security clearance when he worked on the Space Shuttle program for those two companies, has been convicted on charges of economic espionage and acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China.

Technology he stole included Boeing trade secrets related to the Space Shuttle program and the Delta IV rocket, according to the Department of Justice.

Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, was employed by Rockwell International from 1973 until its defense and space unit was acquired by Boeing in 1996. Chung is a native of China who became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He retired in 2002, but the following year returned to Boeing as a contractor, a position he held until September 2006.

On Sept. 11, 2006, FBI and NASA agents searched Chung’s house and found more than 250,000 pages of documents from Boeing, Rockwell and other defense contractors inside the house and in a crawl space underneath the house. Among the documents found in the crawl space were scores of binders containing decades’ worth of stress analysis reports, test results and design information for the Space Shuttle.

posted by Fergie @ 7/18/2009 12:42:00 AM