Udupi Ramachandra Rao Passes Away At Age 85

Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao, who passed away on July 24, 2017, is credited for launching India’s ambitious space program.

AsianScientist (Aug. 21, 2017) – The pioneer of India’s space program, Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao, passed way in the early hours of 24 July 2017 at the age of 85. He was the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization from 1984 to 1994.

India is one of Asia’s space powers, and the scale of its space program is rivalled only by China and Japan. In November 2013, India sent its first spacecraft to Mars, the Mangalyaan. While the Mangalyaan space probe was not the first to make this celestial journey to the red planet, it was by far the cheapest—the cost of NASA’s Maven Mars mission cost US$671 million, while the Mangalyaan mission cost only US$74 million.

The roots of this monumental achievement can be traced back to 1969 when ISRO was established on the belief that space science would benefit India and lift the nation out of poverty. Among the early leaders of the ISRO was Rao, who is affectionately known as the father of India’s satellite program.

Rao received his PhD from India’s Gujarat University in 1960 and thereafter moved to the US to conduct space research in the US at MIT and the University of Texas at Dallas. His experiments with Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft led to a better understanding of solar cosmic ray phenomena and the electromagnetic state of the interplanetary space. He returned to India in 1966 as a Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Driven by the belief that space science would benefit the common man and lift India out of poverty, Rao began to push for the use of satellite technology in India in 1972. He helped build and launch India’s first satellite, the Aryabhata, in 1975, and oversaw the expansion of satellite technology for communication, remote sensing and meteorological services. For his contributions, Rao was awarded the Padma Bhushan award in 1976 by the government of India, the third highest civilian honor in India.

After leaving the ISRO, Rao continued to be deeply involved in the development of space technology and in 1997 was the first Asian to be elected chairman of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), a post that was previously exclusively held by space scientists from USA, Russia and Europe. He continued to serve as chairman Advisory Committee for Space Science, ISRO, from 2005 to 2017.

In recognition of his continuing stewardship of India’s space program, Rao was conferred Padma Vibushan award earlier this year.

Rao’s passing was met with an outpouring of condolences and even India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was saddened by Rao’s passing, noting that Rao’s “contribution to India’s Space Program will never be forgotten.”



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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine. Photo credit: India Space Research Organization
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Jeremy received his PhD from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he studied the role of the tumor microenvironment in cancer progression.

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