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Ralph Jacobson, the Davis County native who rose to Air Force major general and had roles in the U.S. space program, died Nov. 7 in Austin, Texas. He was 82.
His daughter, Betsy Klene, of Park City, said Jacobson died from myelodysplastic syndrome. Jacobson and his wife, Joan Jacobson, lived in Park City for 17 years before moving to family in Texas in 2013.
The Air Force trained Jacobson to fly cargo planes. He flew 299 sorties in Vietnam, according to an Air Force biography.
But Jacobson's mark was made in orbit and space, beginning with a succession of Air Force assignments that started in the early 1960s, including time with NASA.
In 1962, he was an officer helping oversee development of the guidance system in the Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile.
Shortly after that, he went to work a satellite project codenamed Gambit. The program launched surveillance satellites into space to photograph targets that included Soviet and Chinese nuclear sites. Part of Gambit was declassified in 2011, and military analysis called the program a successful one.
Lael Henderson, a retired Air Force colonel who knew Jacobson while they both worked on Gambit, said Jacobson oversaw the development and integration of cameras from Eastman Kodak for the satellites.
Jacobson went to Vietnam for a year beginning in July 1969, flying UC-123Ks, according to his Air Force biography. Then he returned to work in satellites, as a colonel commanding a satellite control facility in Sunnyvale, Calif. The facility was responsible for transmitting instructions to satellites in orbit.
In March 1979, Jacobson became assistant deputy chief of staff for space shuttle development and operations. The first space shuttle, Columbia, launched two years later.
In June 1980 he was named director of space systems and command, control and communications. He was promoted to major general in 1983 and became assistant vice commander of the space division at Los Angeles Air Force Station.
Klene said much of her father's work in the space program was classified; he did not discuss specifics. But Klene said her father acknowledged working on payloads for both the space shuttles and surveillance satellites.
Of the surveillance satellites, Klene said, "It's why [the United States] is safe today, I think."
Henderson, who now lives in Provo, said fellow officers and contractors called Jacobson "Jake," and later people called him "General Jake."
Henderson recalled Jacobson as having all the characteristics one expects in an American general — integrity, confidence, courage, initiative, a willingness to listen and a good balance between work, friends and family.
"The [promotion] system is pretty good at weeding out and making sure the cream rises to the top," Henderson said. "And Jake was one of those men."
Ralph Henry Jacobson was born Dec. 31, 1931, in Salt Lake City, as the youngest of four children to Claude and Gertrude Jacobson. He grew up on a farm in Bountiful and graduated from Davis High School in 1950.
He attended the University of Utah for two years, then entered the Naval Academy in 1952. Jacobson graduated from the Naval Academy in 1956 and received a commission in the Air Force. (At the time, the Naval Academy was still training officers for the Air Force.) He received his wings the next year and flew C-119s and C-123s.
He earned a master's degree in astronautics from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1962 and a second master's degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1966.
After Jacobson's retirement from the Air Force in 1987, he became chief executive of Draper Laboratory, a space, energy and healthcare research firm in Cambridge, Mass. The firm made guidance systems for the space shuttle and ballistic missiles. Jacobson retired from Draper in 1997.
He served on corporate boards as well as an advisory board for the International Space Station. In 1997, after a resupply ship collided with a station module, he lead a task force that conducted a safety assessment of the station and concluded it was safe to send an American astronaut back to the station. In 2003, he served on the panel that explored the failures that led to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Jacobson is survived by his wife, Klene and two sons, Matthew Jacobson, of Cumberland, Maine, and James Jacobson, of Austin; and by eight grandchildren.
Matthew Jacobson and Klene's daughter, Brigitte Klene, also graduated from the Naval Academy.
Services for Jacobson are scheduled for 10 a.m. Nov. 21, in the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy. Burial will be at 11:30 a.m. at the Naval Academy cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation's Athletic and Scholarship Programs.
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