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

8 October 2026, 05: 49 BST. Updated 37 minutes ago.

Key points

• Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s and managed the Software Engineering Division.
• In 2016, Hamilton's life work was honoured by Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to science and space travel.
• In 1969, moments before the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, an onboard computer raised an alarm, signalling an error was occurring.
• From the 1970s onwards, Hamilton applied her expertise to identified her own software businesses, including Hamilton Technologies.
• Hamilton's former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), confirmed her death, adding she died on 30 September.

For context, the computer scientist behind groundbreaking research that supported 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. It coined the term "software engineering".

"To say Hamilton was a pioneer – to say she was ahead of her time – would be a dramatic understatement, " MIT remarked in its statement, before acknowledging that she was a software engineer before it was mainstream.

It was in this division that she led a team of engineers writing and testing all onboard in-flight software for Nasa's Apollo 11 project that guided US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to land safely on the Moon.

"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, " she informed the Guardian in 2019.

For context, the error detected the computer was overloaded, and for a moment it looked like the complex landing might not be achieved.

But Hamilton and her team had planned for such an error by engineering "priority-driven software" to shut down any background tasks and favour the most significant – the Moon landing – according to MIT.

Meanwhile, the team's famous software engineering was immortalised in a 1969 photograph of Hamilton standing beside the stack of printed code that towered beside her.

At the time, Obama remarked Hamilton "symbolises that generation of unsung women who helped send humankind into space".

Hamilton, born in Indiana in 1936, first studied mathematics at the University of Michigan in 1955 before moving to Earlham College where she obtained a BA in mathematics in 1958.

She then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, a year afterwards with her husband and originally took the job at MIT to backing her husband during his law degree.

From the 1970s onwards, Hamilton applied her expertise to identified her own software businesses, including Hamilton Technologies. It is still based in Massachusetts.

"We are saddened by her death, but grateful for the opportunity to have celebrated her extraordinary achievements throughout her long life", Earlham College remarked in an official note on social media.

"Her pioneering spirit and remarkable legacy will continue to inspire generations of Earlhamites, " the statement remarked.

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

Taken together, the developments around margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, dies point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.