Qian Xuesen, known as the father of China's space and missile programmes, has died. He was 98. Also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, Qian passed away Saturday in Beijing, China's state news agency reported without giving cause of death.

There is no immediate information on survivors.

Qian Xuesen

Known as the "Father of Chinese Rocketry" in his homeland Qian was responsible for developing China's intercontinental ballistic missiles, Silkworm anti-ship missiles and weather and reconnaissance satellites.

It would startle many to know that he was also one of the founding fathers of the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena, California, being the founding director of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center. He was also a member of the university's so-called Suicide Squad of rocket experimenters who laid the groundwork for testing done by JPL.

It was Qian's research that contributed to the development of "jet-assisted takeoff" technology that the US military began using in the 1940s.

The regard in which he was held elsewhere around the world can be gauged from the fact that Asteroid 3763 Qianxuesen was named after him. Science fiction author Arthur C Clarke, in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two, named a Chinese spaceship after him.

But behind these impressive achievements lies a tale as extraordinary as any that can be imagined. A tale that in so many ways was also symptomatic of the times that Xuesen lived in.

The man deemed responsible for these technological feats also was labelled a spy in the 1999 Cox Report issued by the US Congress after an investigation into how classified information had been obtained by the Chinese.

Left to right: Ludwig Prandtl (German scientist), Qian Xuesen, Theodore von Kármán. Prandtl served for Germany during the World War II; von Kármán and Qian served for US Army; after 1956, Qian served for China. Interestingly, Prandtl was doctoral advisor for von Kármán; von Kármán was doctoral advisor for Qian.

Qian, a Chinese-born aeronautical engineer was educated at Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was a protege of Caltech's eminent professor Theodore von Karman, who recognized him as an outstanding mathematician and "undisputed genius."

''At the age of 36, he was an undisputed genius whose work was providing an enormous impetus to advances in high-speed aerodynamics and jet propulsion.''

This brilliant career in the United States took a sudden nose-dive in 1950, when the FBI accused him of being a member of a subversive organization. Qian, along with his wife and two children set off for Shanghai, saying he wanted to visit his ageing parents back home. Federal agents seized Qian's containers, which they claimed contained classified materials, and arrested him on suspicion of subversive activity.

Qian denied any communist links, rejected the accusation that he was trying to spirit away secret information and fought deportation to China. He later changed his mind, however, and sought to return to his country.

Five years after his arrest, he was apparently exchanged for 11 American airmen captured during the Korean War.

On his final departure, Qian said, "I do not plan to come back...I have no reason to come back. . . . I plan to do my best to help the Chinese people build up the nation to where they can live with dignity and happiness."

Welcomed as a national hero in China, where the communist regime had recently assumed power after defeating Chiang Kai Shek, Qian became director of China's rocket research and was named to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. China scientific development began making immediate strides.

Born in the eastern city of Hangzhou, Qian graduated from Jiaotong University in Shanghai, where he studied mechanical engineering. Winning a scholarship to MIT he earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering there before pursuing doctoral studies at Caltech.

Another paradox of Qian's life was the fact that his wife Jiang Ying, a famed opera singer, was the daughter of Jiang Bai Li - one of Chiang Kai-shek's leading military strategists, and his Japanese wife.

In America, Qian taught at MIT and Caltech before serving on the Scientific Advisory Board that advised the US military during and after World War II.

Sent to Germany to interrogate Nazi scientists, Qian interviewed rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. According to trade magazine Aviation Week, which named him its Person of the Year for 2007, "No one then knew that the father of the future US space program was being quizzed by the father of the future Chinese space program."

After the war Qian returned to Caltech in 1949 but a year later faced accusations that he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Admitting that he was present at social gatherings organized by colleagues who also were accused of party membership, he denied any political involvement.

An examination of the papers Qian packed away for his trip to China failed to turn up any classified documents other than simple logarithmic tables.

Although federal officials started deportation procedures in 1950, he was prevented from leaving the country because it was feared that he knew too much about sensitive military matters that could be of use to an enemy. Living in partial house arrest, Qian quit fighting deportation and actively worked to return to China.

During his house arrest, Qian received full support from his Caltech colleagues, including Caltech president Lee DuBridge, who went to Washington to argue Qian's case. Caltech appointed attorney Grant Cooper to defend Qian.

Later, Cooper would say, "That the government permitted this genius, this scientific genius, to be sent to Communist China to pick his brains is one of the tragedies of this century."

"It was the stupidest thing this country ever did," former Navy secretary Dan Kimball was later quoted by Aviation Week as saying. "He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go."

The 1999 Cox Report made two claims about Qian, one that was never proven, and the other that was patently false. The first was the charge that he was a spy for China, and the second that he provided that country with secrets concerning the American Titan ICBM programme.

As has been pointed out the charge related to the Titan programme was impossible, because Tsien's security clearance was revoked in 1950 and he was deported in September 1955 and work on the Titan missile did not even start until October 1955. He had left the country even before a Titan programme had come into existence.

As for the other charge that Tsien engaged in espionage in the United States it remained just that - a charge - for no evidence then, or since, has emerged to support it.

In China, a mere three years after he landed there Qian had by 1958 finalized the plans of the Dong Feng missile, which was first successfully launched in 1964. The launch came just before China's first successful nuclear weapons test.

It is also claimed that Qian's work was responsible for the development of the Silkworm anti-ship missile.

In a move to make amends, his alma mater Caltech, where he did most of his impressive early work, awarded him Caltech's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1979. In a belated move the US government offered him compensation, but no apology, for his detainment.

The offer was turned down by Qian, who never visited the United States again.

In a widely publicised event Caltech also offered him his filing cabinets, containing his research work, which after initial refusal were brought to China and became part of the Qian Library at Xi'an Jiaotong University and the Institute of Mechanics.

Qian retired in 1991.