The roof leaked and equipment was being transported by ox carts and bicycles, but in the abandoned St. Mary Magdalene Church, along the southern coast of India, there was no room for pessimism. There, in 1962, with rocket prototypes crowding the pews, India’s space program was being born.

And helping to steer it was U. R. Rao, who believed that science — particularly aerospace science — could help his country solve its food shortages and eradicate its poverty. He would begin toiling there, pursuing his vision with other scientists, from offices in a converted bishop’s house.

Eighteen years later, on Nov. 21, 1980, their efforts bore fruit when the former churchyard became the scene of India’s first rocket launch, giving the country a foothold in an exclusive club of spacefaring nations.

Professor Rao, who helped India propel its first satellites into space as a chairman of the program, died on July 24 at 85 at his home in Bengaluru, India, according to the Indian Space Research Organization, which did not provide a cause.