American programmer Margaret Hamilton, who led the development of the software for the "Apollo 11" mission (Apollo 11), has died at the age of 90. The Guardian reports, according to UNN.
Details
According to the publication, the engineer's death was announced on Wednesday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"At a time when positions such as software engineer and computer scientist had not yet become common, Hamilton, who died on September 30, learned to program under the guidance of a renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist. She continued improving the equipment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory, developing software that could detect enemy aircraft," the publication writes.
So, when NASA contracted the institute to create onboard software for the Apollo mission, Hamilton took advantage of the opportunity and joined the work.
"I was attracted both by the idea itself and by the fact that it had never been done before. I was the first programmer to join, and the first woman they hired," she told the Guardian in 2019.
According to the publication, in 1969, several minutes before the "Apollo 11" landing on the Moon, the onboard computer issued an emergency signal. The team then faced the question of whether the mission should be aborted. Ultimately, the spacecraft continued its flight, and the software worked exactly as Hamilton and her team had intended.
"It quickly became clear that the software not only informed everyone that there was a problem related to the equipment, but also compensated for it—it restarted and recovered the highest-priority task. Error-detection and recovery mechanisms came to the rescue," Hamilton said.
In 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and recalled this incident. "Our astronauts did not have much time, but fortunately, they had Margaret Hamilton," he said.
According to available information, Hamilton is survived by a daughter, a son-in-law, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Recall
A piece of the "Apollo 11" spacecraft, which traveled to the Moon with the first astronauts—a strip of golden thermopolyimide tape—is now the central detail of the wedding ring of John Messick, a planning manager at aerospace company Lockheed Martin.