Udipi Ramachandra Rao

Udupi Ramachandra Rao, popularly known as U. R. Rao () is a space scientist and former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Presently he is the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad, which is considered as the cradle of India's Space Program. Prof Rao was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1976.

Early life

U. R. Rao was born at Adamaru in Karnataka State, India. He had his primary education at Adamaru.

Education

• Ph.D. – Gujarat University, India, 1960
• M.Sc. - Banaras Hindu University, India, 1952
• B.Sc. - Madras University, India, 1952

After working as a Faculty Member at MIT and Assistant Professor at University of Texas at Dallas where he carried out investigations as a prime experimenter on a number of Pioneer and Explorer spacecrafts, Prof. Rao returned to India in 1966 as Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Career

Prof Rao started his career as a cosmic ray scientist, under the late Dr Vikram Sarabhai, which work he continued at MIT. In association with the JPL Group, he was the first to establish the continuous nature of the solar wind and its effect on geomagnetism using Mariner 2 observations. Prof Rao's experiments on a number of Pioneer and Explorer spacecrafts, led to a complete understanding of the solar cosmic ray phenomena and the electromagnetic state of the interplanetary space. Convinced of the imperative need to use...
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