[1] 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.

from Banaras Hindu University and Ph.D. at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad under the guidance of Vikram Sarabhai.

[8] After working as a post doctoral associate 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 spacecraft,[10] Rao returned to India in 1966 as a professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

[10][8] Rao started his career as a cosmic ray scientist and worked under Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, which he continued at MIT.

In association with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory group, he was the first to establish the continuous nature of the solar wind and its effect on geomagnetism using Mariner 2 observations.

Rao's experiments on a number of Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft led to a complete understanding of the solar cosmic-ray phenomena and the electromagnetic state of the interplanetary space.

During these decades fixed telephone (called as landline) expanded throughout country due to availability of satellite links at different places in the ground.

He was the first Indian Space Scientist to be allowed into the Prestigious “Satellite Hall of Fame” at Washington DC, USA in recent past on 19 March 2013.

Rao was the Vice President of International Astronautical Federation (IAF) during 1984 to 1992 and continues to be the Chairman of the Committee for Liaison with Developing Countries (CLIODN) since 1986.

J. Abdul Kalam was President, he presented the Life Time Achievement Award constituted by ISRO and Astronautical Society of India (ASI) to Prof. Rao for his outstanding contribution to the organization.