Wei Zhongquan

Wei Zhongquan (; November 1937 – 3 October 2019) was a Chinese satellite engineer who served as vice president and chief engineer of the Shanghai Satellite Engineering Institute. He was the chief designer of the Fengyun-2, China's first geostationary meteorological satellite, and the Yaogan-1, China's first remote sensing satellite.

Life and career Wei was born in November 1937 in Wuxi, Jiangsu, Republic of China. He studied at Nanyang Model High School in Shanghai and tested into the mathematics department of Fudan University in 1954.

When Mao Zedong decided to develop China's own artificial satellite in 1958, Wei joined the satellite program at the Institute of Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) upon graduation that year. He excelled in research and developed a specialized digital computer in 1964 to enhance the ability to detect weak communication signals. For this contribution he was named a model worker of the CAS in that year. In 1965, he participated in the design of the telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) system of the Dong Fang Hong I, China's first satellite, as an assistant to Chen Fangyun. After the failure, Wei and his team spent another three years analyzing and fixing the problems. The Fengyun-2 satellite was successfully launched on 12 June 1997, and was awarded the National Defence Science and Technology Progress Award (First Class). The satellite was successfully launched two days after his death.

Following another successful launch of the Gaofen-12 satellite on 28 November 2019, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology held a ceremony to dedicate Wei Zhongquan's cenotaph at the martyrs' cemetery of the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.