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(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/us_and_canada) US & Canada           Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the Moon, dies at 90          To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This video can not be played       Figure caption,  Moment Margaret Hamilton receives Presidential Medal of Freedom       By Claire Keenan     Published 8 October 2026, 05:49 BST        Updated 5 hours ago       The computer scientist behind groundbreaking research that helped 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, which coined the term "software engineering".  Hamilton's former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), confirmed her death, adding she died on 30 September.  "To say Hamilton was a pioneer - to say she was ahead of her time - would be a dramatic understatement," MIT said in its statement, before acknowledging that she was a software engineer before it was mainstream. Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 until the mid-1970s and managed the Software Engineering Division.  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 told the Guardian in 2019. In 1969, moments before the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, an onboard computer raised an alarm, signalling an error was occurring. 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 important - the Moon landing - according to MIT. 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.       (A black and white photograph of a woman standing next to a pile of books that is as tall of her.)    Image source,  MIT MUESEUM  Image caption,  Hamilton with the printed computer code in 1969       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.  At the time, Obama said 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 got a BA in mathematics in 1958.  She then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, a year later with her husband and originally took the job at MIT to support her husband during his law degree. From the 1970s onwards, Hamilton used her expertise to found her own software businesses, including Hamilton Technologies, which 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 said in a statement on social media.  "Her pioneering spirit and remarkable legacy will continue to inspire generations of Earlhamites," the statement said.  Hamilton is survived by her daughter, a son-in-law, two grandsons and four great-grandchildren, according to MIT.      (A woman with grey hair being awarded a medal by the-then President Barack Obama, who is placing the blue and gold medal around her neck from behind.)    Image source,  Getty  Image caption,  Hamilton being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then President Barack Obama in 2016       Related topics  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cdx524q7474t) Apollo 11 Moon landing  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cvenzmgyww4t) Space exploration  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c77jz3mdmnxt) Nasa        More on this story (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38076123) Honour for Apollo mission coder     Published 23 November 2016          (Margaret Hamilton with a stack of code)                (vertical video collection) The video playlist   Watch our pick of standout clips from across the BBC      Previous     Next         1:27 Workers paid under £1 an hour to make football shirts. 00:01:27, play video Workers paid under £1 an hour to make football shirts    (A display case full of national soccer jerseys at an Adidas store that sells soccer jerseys.)           1:50 Men jailed for raping girl after Snapchat grooming. 00:01:50, play video Men jailed for raping girl after Snapchat grooming    (Three mugshots of men who were jailed)           1:36 'I had to crawl through a busy train like an animal' 00:01:36, play video 'I had to crawl through a busy train like an animal'    (A woman with short brown hair sits with a dog in on her knee)           1:02 What caused this huge ship fire off a Russian seaside resort? 00:01:02, play video What caused this huge ship fire off a Russian seaside resort?    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