Dick Jansson was an excellent engineer and radio amateur who spent much of his life in the tall weeds of endless technical details. His recent passing is a loss for the entire fraternity and a milestone in the evolution of the hobby. RIP Dick, it was good to know you.

From the AMSAT News Service ANS-145:

It is with sadness that AMSAT notes the passing of Richard M. (Dick) Jansson, KD1K (formerly WD4FAB) a long time Vice President - Engineering for The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) on May 13, 2025. He was 94.

During his working career, Dick held a variety of engineering positions with Sperry Corporation including helping to develop, construct, and evaluate instrumentation for advanced supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, including the X-15, at NACA (the forerunner of NASA). Dick also worked at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory where he designed, developed and tested space navigation and guidance instruments for the Apollo program. Later, as a Senior Staff Engineer for Honeywell, he created thermal designs for electro-optical instrumentation on several critical US space projects including Explorers 33 and 35, as well as the Apollo and Skylab programs for NASA. Dick then went on to transfer his expertise to the Martin Marietta Corporation, where he was active in the design and testing of miniature closed-cycle cryogenic coolers for infrared detectors on several Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) applications.

After his retirement from Martin Marietta, Dick performed thermal and mechanical design, computer thermal analyses, and material selection functions on a wide variety of AMSAT spacecraft including OSCARs 10 and 13, as well as the MICROSAT series. He was heavily involved in the thermal, structural and mechanical design of the AMSAT Phase 3D satellite (which later became AMSAT-OSCAR 40 on orbit). And, for his work on a number of AMSAT spacecraft over the years, Dick was honored by the Dayton Hamvention with their prestigious Technical Excellence Award in 1993.

Dick was first licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator in 1972, and held an Extra Class license. For many years, he resided in Maitland, Florida with his loving wife, the former Mary Sweeney of Washington, DC who predeceased him. The Janssons were the proud parents of three children: Katherine, Carole and Edward.

A memorial service for Dick set to be held at St. Luke’s Church in Oviedo, Florida at 10:00 AM on June 4th, 2025.