IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2021 - 293

IN MEMORIAM
Thomas C. von Deak (1954-2021)
T
homas (Tom) C. von Deak passed away on 30 July
2021. He was a skilled electrical engineer working
for NASA at the Glenn Research Center, Cleveland,
Ohio, until his retirement, in 2018. Beginning in
2020, along with consulting for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on matters
of frequency management, he became increasingly involved
with the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Society (GRSS) Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing
(FARS) Technical Committee, participating in many
of its activities and becoming its senior advisor. Tom
received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
His NASA career had many phases. From 1991 to
1996, Tom worked on NASA's Advanced Communications
Technology Satellite (ACTS), contributing to the success of
that unique program, which paved the way for the use
of Ka-band frequencies for commercial and government
communications. ACTS was a significant component of
the NASA space communications program and provided
for the development and flight testing of high-risk, advanced
communications technologies. Using multiple
spot beam antennas and advanced onboard switching
and processing systems, ACTS pioneered initiatives in
communications satellite technology. NASA's Glenn Research
Center (previously the Lewis Research Center)
was responsible for the development, management, and
operation of ACTS as part of a long legacy of experimental
communications satellites. Tom led efforts to obtain
public sector partnerships to collaborate with the ACTS
Experiment Office; these partner experimenters represented
a variety of technologies and fields, including the
ISDN, high data rates, and the sciences. ACTS became
known as a " switchboard in the sky, " and the geostationary
satellite was launched in September 1993. While
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2021.3120438
Date of current version: 14 January 2022
DECEMBER 2021 IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE
originally planned for 24-48 months of operation, the
system remained operational for 127.
After the launch of ACTS, Tom was part of the ACTS
Experiments Office, which worked with industry and academia
on various satellite-based experiments. Through
its coordination, 53 Gigabit Earth Stations were built and
used by more than 100 experimenters. As leader of the
demonstration planning team, Tom was a participant in
many of those experiments, including a groundbreaking
demonstration of 520-Mb/s TCP/IP throughput using
asynchronous transfer mode
(ATM) among several ground
stations. During this time, he
authored papers for telecommunications
conferences and
coauthored several IEEE papers
pertaining to high-data-rate applications
of ACTS technology.
He also represented NASA at the
National Institute of Standards
and Technology ISDN Forum
to advance satellite-terrestrial
ISDN telephony interoperability.
For their pioneering achievements,
Tom and the ACTS team received several NASA
awards, and the ACTS Gigabit Satellite Network was officially
inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame.
Building on his experience with ACTS, Tom also represented
NASA in the ATM Forum to obtain a specification
inclusive of geosynchronous satellite requirements. The
ATM Forum was a telecommunication consortium that
established industry standards for ATM protocols operating
predominately over fiber optics.
Just prior to the official end of the ACTS experiments
program, in 2000, Tom looked for new challenges and
joined the NASA Spectrum Management Office at the
Glenn Research Center. He first worked on various
aspects of spectrum management supporting space
293
FROM 1991 TO 1996,
TOM WORKED ON
NASA'S ADVANCED
COMMUNICATIONS
TECHNOLOGY SATELLITE,
CONTRIBUTING TO THE
SUCCESS OF THAT UNIQUE
PROGRAM.
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2021

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