Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, dies at 90

What the report says

Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist who led the development of software for NASA’s Apollo missions and helped make the Apollo 11 Moon landing possible, has died aged 90, according to BBC World News citing MIT. MIT said she died on 30 September. Hamilton was widely recognised as a pioneer in software engineering and is credited with helping shape the discipline before it became mainstream.

BBC World News reported that Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 into the mid-1970s, where she headed the Software Engineering Division and oversaw the code used on Apollo 11. Her team wrote and tested the onboard software that guided Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon. The article said that, during the landing, the onboard computer issued an alarm because it was overloaded, but the software was designed to prioritise essential tasks and continue the descent.

The report also noted that Hamilton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 from then-President Barack Obama, who described her as representing the many women whose work supported the space program. Born in Indiana in 1936, she studied mathematics before moving into computing and later founded her own software companies, including Hamilton Technologies in Massachusetts. BBC World News said she is survived by family members, and Earlham College paid tribute to her legacy.