Late. Col N Pant was the Director of URSC from 1985 to 1990. Under his able leadership, four major satellite projects SROSS-1,IRS-1A,the SROSS-2 & INSAT-1C were realized. SROSS-1 was the first satellite in the stretched Rohini satellite series launched onboard the first development flight of ASLV. Similarly, IRS-1A , the first of the series of indigenous state-of-art remote sensing satellites, demonstrated the application of remote sensing data for various applications.

After finishing his intermediate college education at Almora, he entered Lucknow University in 1948 and obtained his Postgraduate Degree in Physics with Wireless as special subject in 1952. In May 1965, he joined the team that was assigned the task of setting up of India’s first Experimental Satellite Communication Earth Station (ESCES) at Ahmedabad. He has been involved in the satellite based communication and broadcasting from the very start of these activities in the country. He was the Chief Systems Engineer for India 's first commercial earth station at Arvi near Poona , which was completed in 1971. He made significant technical and managerial contributions in the setting up of this station. During 1974-75, under his direction, major earth station sub-systems/equipment were successfully developed and installed for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) at Ahmedabad, Delhi and Amritsar Earth Stations. Shri Pant has held the assignments of Director, Experimental Satellite Communications Earth Station , Ahmedabad and Chairman, Communication Area, SAC. During his tenure as Director, SHAR various facilities needed for launching of satellites were established. In May 1990, he was appointed Deputy Chairman, ISRO and was deeply involved in many ongoing and future projects of ISRO in its different Centres.

He is the recipient of many awards for his outstanding contributions in the field of science and technology which includes

• "Padmashri" by the Government of India in 1984 for his achievements in the field of Satellite Communications,
• Dr. Biren Roy Space Award for 1985 by the Aeronautical Society of India,
• Aryabhata Award for 1995 by the Astronautical Society of India,
• Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Award for his contributions in the development of Science and Technology, which carried Gold Medal during the 92 nd Indian Science Congress held in January 2005.
• "Excellence in Performance Award" for the year 2006 by ISRO , in recognition of his exemplary contribution made towards the success of India 's space programme.