Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, dies at 90
Margaret Hamilton, a pioneering computer scientist who led the team that developed the Apollo 11 flight software, has died at age 90. Her work at MIT was instrumental in ensuring the success of the Moon landing by implementing priority-driven software that handled critical system errors.
Why it matters
Hamilton is recognized as a foundational figure in software engineering, having coined the term and established practices that remain essential to modern aerospace and computing.
Image source, Getty Image caption, Hamilton after she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016
The computer scientist behind groundbreaking research that helped land Nasa's astronauts on the Moon, has died aged 90.
Margaret Hamilton was a trailblazer in her field, leading the team who developed the software for Nasa's Apollo missions, which coined the term "software engineering".
Hamilton's former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), confirmed her death, adding she died on 30 September.
"To say Hamilton was a pioneer - to say she was ahead of her time - would be a dramatic understatement," MIT said in its statement, before acknowledging that she was a software engineer before it was mainstream.
Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s and managed the Software Engineering Division.
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