Margaret Hamilton, who wrote the 'Apollo 11' code that saved the Moon landing, dies at 90

From the Newshound archive · first published 8 October 2026 · last updated 9 October 2026.

Margaret Hamilton's software rescued the Apollo 11 mission just three minutes before touchdown, when a computer alarm threatened to abort the landing — her program automatically dumped low-priority tasks so the Eagle could descend safely with only 30 seconds of fuel to spare. The computer scientist, who coined the term 'software engineer', died on 30 September at a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital, with her death announced by MIT this week. Hamilton led a team of roughly 100 engineers to build the onboard guidance software for NASA's Apollo programme, starting aged just 29. Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, calling her a symbol of 'the generation of unsung women who helped send humankind into space.'

Hamilton said of the near-catastrophic alarm moments before landing: 'Oh my God, this is not real.'

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman paid tribute, urging humanity to 'finally pick up where her generation left off and never stop going.'

A famous photograph of Hamilton standing beside a towering stack of printed Apollo code became an iconic symbol of women in technology.