Margaret Hamilton, the lead software engineer of the world's first successful manned lunar mission, has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the US' highest civilian award.
Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the Moon carrying the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins was made successful by a team of 400,000 people including Margaret Hamilton 47 years ago. The team worked relentlessly to ensure the safe landing and return of the astronauts.
NASA issued the very first contract for the Apollo program in August 1961 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the guidance and navigation system for the Apollo spacecraft, NASA revealed on its blog.
Hamilton, then a computer programmer, ended up leading the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, now known as Draper Labs. The project started when computer science, as we now know it, was just coming into existence. She is credited with coining the term "software engineering." The success of Apollo stands on Hamilton's unique approach to the software development and insistence on rigorous testing.
Thanks to Hamilton, the Apollo guidance software was so robust that not a single software bug was found on any further crewed Apollo missions. The software was later adapted for use in Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the first digital fly-by-wire systems in aircraft.
Hamilton's approach proved itself on July 20, 1969, when minutes before Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, the software overrode a command switching the flight computer's priority system to a radar system. The override, announced by a "1202 alarm," informed everyone about the guidance computer shedding less important tasks (like rendezvous radar) to focus on steering the descent engine and providing landing information to the crew.
Before being honored at the White House, Hamilton was previously honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development. It was the largest financial award that NASA had ever presented to any individual till then.
On November 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Hamilton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. It is awarded to those who have made an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.