The head of NASA pledged today to carry out a full review of space agency security procedures after the arrest this month of a former contractor suspected of attempting to take sensitive technology back to his native China.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made the pledge to the House Committee on Appropriations today (March 20) during a hearing to answer lawmakers' questions about potential security lapses at space agency centers.

"It is critically important for us to have confidence in NASA's ability to protect sensitive assets from exploitation," said U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who originally announced the arrest of the former NASA contractor during a press conference on Monday (March 18).

Chinese spy at NASA?

At the center of the controversy is Bo Jiang, a Chinese national who worked as a contractor for the National Institute of Aerospace at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. He was arrested by FBI agents on March 16 onboard a plane bound for China departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. Officials say Jiang lied to law enforcement authorities about the electronics equipment he was carrying, and Wolf has accused him of being a spy for China.

"We know that China is an active, aggressive espionage threat," Wolf said today. "The technologies that NASA works on are those that the Chinese most heavily target."

The congressman even suggested that some of China's recent space advancements, which include launching astronauts to space on Chinese-built rockets and docking spacecraft in orbit, were enabled through Chinese theft of space technology. [China's 1st Manned Space Docking (Pictures)]

Bolden assured the lawmakers that he took their concerns seriously, and said he's taken several steps already to find security failures within the space agency.

"NASA takes all your allegations of security violations, and those from anyone else, very seriously," Bolden said. "This is about national security, not about NASA security, and I take that personally. I'm responsible and I will hold myself accountable once our reviews are completed."

New measures

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NASA Probes Security Lapses After Arrest of Ex-Contractor