Margaret Hamilton, Apollo flight software pioneer, dies at 90

Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist who led the team that wrote NASA's Apollo flight software, has died at age 90.

Hamilton passed away on September 30, according to MIT. She joined MIT's Instrumentation Lab in 1965 as the Apollo project's first programmer. By 1968, she was heading the team writing the onboard code for crewed missions, eventually leading a group of over 400 people.

Why it matters: Hamilton helped turn software engineering into an actual discipline. Her team pioneered defensive programming—building systems that could recover from human or hardware errors in mid-flight—at a time when computer bugs meant risking human lives.

Know this: Before Apollo, Hamilton wrote early weather prediction software at MIT that helped inform chaos theory, along with air defense code at Lincoln Laboratory. After the moon landings, she went on to become a CEO and software entrepreneur.

When failure wasn't an option, her code made sure the mission landed.