Margaret Hamilton, Apollo 11 software pioneer, dies at 90

Obama awarded Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016

Margaret Hamilton, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist whose software guided the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the lunar surface in 1969, has died at 90, MIT announced on Wednesday. Hamilton died on 30 September, according to the institute.

Hamilton learned to program under the tutelage of a renowned MIT meteorologist in an era before titles such as software engineer and computer scientist became mainstream, the Guardian reported. She continued to perfect the craft in an MIT laboratory, writing software that could detect enemy aircraft. When the institute received a NASA contract to develop the Apollo onboard flight software, she jumped at the opportunity.

“I was attracted both by the sheer idea and the fact that it had never been done before. I was the first programmer to join and the first woman they hired,” Hamilton told the Guardian in 2019.

In 1969, minutes before the Apollo 11 spacecraft was set to make history by landing on the lunar surface, an onboard computer’s alarm rang, indicating an emergency. Faced with a decision of whether to abort the mission, the spacecraft continued on. The software was working just as Hamilton and her team intended.

“It quickly became clear the software was not only informing everyone that there was a hardware-related problem but was compensating for it – restarting and re-establishing the highest priority tasks. The error detection and recovery mechanisms had come to the rescue,” Hamilton said.

Barack Obama referenced the incident when he presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. “Our astronauts didn’t have much time, but thankfully they had Margaret Hamilton,” he said.

Hamilton is survived by her daughter, a son-in-law, two grandsons and four great grandchildren, according to MIT.

Reflecting on the mission in a 2009 interview with MIT News, Hamilton said: “Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.”