American computer scientist and software engineering pioneer, Margaret Hamilton, whose work helped guide NASA’s Apollo astronauts to the Moon, has died at the age of 90.
Hamilton died on September 30, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology confirmed.
The institution, where she worked for more than a decade, did not disclose the cause of her death.
She joined MIT in 1959 and later headed its Software Engineering Division at the Instrumentation Laboratory.
The laboratory secured a NASA contract in 1961, and Hamilton eventually led a team of about 100 engineers responsible for developing software used to guide the Apollo missions.
Her contribution to the space programme also helped establish software engineering as a recognised professional field.
Hamilton popularised the term while developing complex systems at a time when computer software was still a relatively new discipline.
Her work proved particularly important during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
Just minutes before astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface, Hamilton’s software detected and responded to an overload in the spacecraft’s computer system, allowing the mission to continue safely.
Hamilton also focused heavily on preventing errors. One of the safeguards she developed followed an incident involving her young daughter, Lauren, who accidentally caused an Apollo simulator to crash while playing with it.
Hamilton subsequently introduced protections designed to prevent similar mistakes from occurring during an actual mission.
Her achievements were later recognised with several major honours.
In 2003, she received NASA’s Exceptional Space Act Award, while former United States President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 for her contributions to science and space exploration.
After the Apollo programme, Hamilton left MIT and founded her own company.
Her former colleagues continued to recognise her influence, with MIT describing her as a pioneer whose leadership and technical contributions helped make one of humanity’s most complex technological achievements possible.
