Early in 2011, a US court sentenced to imprisonment a former Indian-American, Noshir Gowadia, who was noted for designing the propulsion systems for the B-2 Bomber, while working with Northrop Corp, now Northrop Grumman. He was arrested in 2005.

Gowadia, 66, is said to have got over $1,00,000 from the sale of military secrets and showing his Chinese contacts how his stealth cruise missile design would be effective against US air-to-air missiles. Between 2003 and 2005 Gowadia made six secret trips into mainland China and exchanged numerous communications to help Chinese defence engineers design a cruise missile that is able to evade air-to-air, heat-seeking missiles, they said.

Gowadia moved from India to the US for post-graduate studies in the 1960s and became a US citizen about a decade later. He retired from Northrop for health reasons in 1986, two years before the B-2 made its public debut.