Hamilton, the software developer for the Apollo program, died at the age of 91.

Margaret Hamilton, a software developer for NASA's Apollo program, died on September 30 at the age of 90. This was announced on October 7 on the website of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she led the software development team for onboard spacecraft systems.

"To say that Margaret Hamilton was a trailblazer, that she was ahead of her time, would be a big understatement. She was a software engineer at a time when this field was in its infancy," said Olivier de Veck, professor of the Apollo program and interim head of MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Hamilton has worked at MIT since 1959, and joined the Apollo Project in the mid-1960s. She became the first programmer hired for this program at MIT, and the first female programmer on the project. Subsequently, Hamilton led the team involved in the development of on-board software for manned missions.

One of the key episodes of her work was the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon in July 1969. Shortly before landing, the on-board computer issued an alarm due to an overload caused by a malfunction of the hardware switch. The software developed by the Hamilton team automatically disabled secondary tasks and gave priority to critical operations, which allowed the landing to continue.

Hamilton has made significant contributions to the development of software engineering as a separate discipline. She has authored more than 130 publications, and after working at MIT, she founded two software development companies. In 2016, former US President Barack Obama awarded Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contributions to the development of software engineering and the American space program.