Zhang Qingwei - Aerospace Industry

Aerospace Industry

In 1988 Zhang Qingwei returned to work for the Ministry of Aerospace Industry and later joined China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the birthplace of China's Long March rocket. He showed exceptional talent at CALT and was credited with the 1990 launch of the AsiaSat 1 satellite for the American company Hughes Satellite Systems. It marked the first time for the Long March rocket to successfully launch a foreign satellite.

After the success with AsiaSat 1, Zhang was tasked with developing the Long March 2 rocket for China's human spaceflight program (later called the Shenzhou program). He became the deputy director of CALT in 1996, and the vice-manager of the newly established China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) in 1999. In 2001 he was appointed president of CASC, and starting in February 2002 he concurrently served as deputy chief commander of the Shenzhou program. In October 2003 Shenzhou 5 completed China's first ever human spaceflight mission, and two years later two more astronauts safely returned to earth after a five-day spaceflight on Shenzhou 6.

In August 2007 Zhang Qingwei was appointed chairman of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), becoming one of the youngest persons to hold a minister-level post in China. He guided the merger of COSTIND with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2008. He also concurrently served as head of China's Lunar Exploration Program.

In 2008 Zhang was appointed chairman of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), a state-owned enterprise that was newly established to develop China's own jumbo jets. In 2009 he drew international attention after being named one of China's 40 most powerful people by BusinessWeek.