Udupi Ramachandra Rao
Indian space scientist (1932–2017)
Udupi Ramachandra Rao (10 March 1932 – 24 July 2017) was an Indian space scientist and former chairman of ISRO. He was also the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and Nehru Planetarium at Bengaluru and chancellor of the Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology (IIST) at Thiruvananthapuram. He is known as "The Satellite Man of India". He pioneered India's first satellite launch Aryabhata in 1975.
Rao was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1976, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2017. He was inducted into the Satellite Hall of Fame, Washington, on 19 March 2013 at a ceremony organised by the Society of Satellite Professionals International. With this he became the first Indian to be inducted. He was also to be inducted in International Astronautics Federation (IAF) on 15 May 2016. He was again the first Indian to achieve such a feat.
Early life
U. R. Rao was born into a Madhwa Brahmin Hindu family at Adamaru in the state of Karnataka. His parents were Lakshminarayana Acharya and Krishnaveni Amma.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Udupi Ramachandra Rao” as indian space scientist (1932–2017). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7877236. VIAF identifies the subject as 73162366. The Library of Congress control number is n82236102. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2017, 1975 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Udupi Ramachandra Rao” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.