Margaret Hamilton, Apollo 11 software lead who coined 'software engineering', dies at 90
tbirdcymru · x · 2026-10-08
MIT confirmed that Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist who led development of NASA's Apollo onboard flight software, died on September 30 at age 90. She is credited with coining the term "software engineering".
Hamilton worked at MIT from 1959 to the mid-1970s, managing the Software Engineering Division that wrote and tested all onboard software for Apollo 11. Moments before the 1969 Moon landing, the computer raised an overload alarm — but her team's priority-driven software had been engineered to handle exactly that, letting the landing proceed. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
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