The work of software programmer Margaret Hamilton helped navigate the Apollo 11 space mission toward the reality of the lunar surface. She was a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when she applied to join the on-campus software team that was working on the Apollo space project.

She was the first woman to join the team as a programmer, assigned first to develop software for Apollo's uncrewed missions. She was soon promoted to director of software.

MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory was responsible for computers - one in the command module and another which accompanied Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the Eagle landing module which touched down on the surface of the moon in 1969. Her work would eventually contribute to subsequent lunar missions and to Skylab, the first US space station, and the early space shuttle.

It was her effort on the moon lander, however, that many credited with saving the mission. After the computer's processing unit became overloaded during Eagle's descent, her software ensured that only essential, high-priority functions would be permitted to continue - as a result, the module went forward toward a safe landing.

She later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom among her many honors.

Margaret Hamilton died on September 30th in a Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital. She was 90 years old.