Margaret Hamilton, head of Apollo software development, dies in the US — The Guardian
Margaret Hamilton, the engineer who led the software engineering division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Instrumentation Laboratory during the development of computer systems for the Apollo program, has died in the United States at the age of 90. The Guardian reports her death.
Hamilton's team developed the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), an onboard computer that helped astronauts control the flight and navigation of spacecraft. One AGC was used in the command module, which remained in lunar orbit, and another in the lunar module, which made the landing. The computer was built using silicon integrated circuits.
Role in the Apollo 11 landing
During the descent of the Eagle lunar module on the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, alarm signals sounded in the cabin. The mission control center considered aborting the landing. Hamilton, who was monitoring the mission from MIT, understood that a radar switch had accidentally been left active.
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She had previously seen such a situation during simulations, when Buzz Aldrin made a similar mistake. Hamilton explained to controllers Steve Bales and Jack Garman that the mission did not need to be aborted in the absence of repeated alarms. Through flight director Gene Kranz, Neil Armstrong was told that the alarm could be ignored. Five minutes later, Armstrong reported Eagle's landing.
Approach to software engineering
Hamilton insisted on repeatedly testing programs to find errors. Her daughter Lauren once accidentally launched the P01 program on a command module simulator during a flight, causing the system to malfunction. When P01 was accidentally activated during Apollo 8 in 1968, the problem was fixed during the mission. According to the publication, software errors were not reported on any crewed Apollo mission.
Hamilton also introduced the term “software engineering” to distinguish practical software development from theoretical computer science. After the Apollo program ended, she worked on the Skylab space station and shuttle projects, and later founded Higher Order Software and Hamilton Technologies. In 2016, US President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
