NASA Honors Apollo Engineer

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1979) Sept. 3, 2003

RELEASE: 03-281

NASA HONORS APOLLO ENGINEER

Margaret Hamilton, leader of the team that developed the
flight software for the agency's Apollo missions, has been
granted a NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific
and technical contributions.

"The Apollo flight software Ms. Hamilton and her team
developed was truly a pioneering effort," said NASA
Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "The concepts she and her team
created became the building blocks for modern 'software
engineering.' It's an honor to recognize Ms. Hamilton for her
extraordinary contributions to NASA," he said.

Dr. Paul Curto, senior technologist for NASA's Inventions and
Contributions Board nominated Hamilton for the award. Curto
said, "I was surprised to discover she was never formally
recognized for her groundbreaking work. Her concepts of
asynchronous software, priority scheduling, end-to-end
testing, and man-in-the-loop decision capability, such as
priority displays, became the foundation for ultra-reliable
software design."

One example of the value of Hamilton's software work occurred
during the Apollo 11 mission. Approximately three minutes
before Eagle's touchdown on the moon, the software over rode a
command to switch the flight computer's priority processing to
a radar system whose 'on' switch had been manually activated
due to a faulty written operations script provided to the
crew. The action by the software permitted the mission to
safely continue.

NASA's Space Act Award recognizes a specific scientific or
technical innovation of significant value to the agency's
aeronautical or space activities. Congress gave NASA the
authority to grant up to $100,000 for each innovation.
Included with the award, Hamilton received a check for
$37,200, the largest award to an individual in NASA's history.

For information about NASA on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

From Ron Baalke:

NASA HONORS APOLLO ENGINEER

Margaret Hamilton, leader of the team that developed the
flight software for the agency's Apollo missions, has been
granted a NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific
and technical contributions.

Thanks for the post, Ron. It's always great to see accomplished
female engineers getting recognized for their work.

One example of the value of Hamilton's software work occurred
during the Apollo 11 mission. Approximately three minutes
before Eagle's touchdown on the moon, the software over rode a
command to switch the flight computer's priority processing to
a radar system whose 'on' switch had been manually activated
due to a faulty written operations script provided to the
crew. The action by the software permitted the mission to
safely continue.

(This wording of the story seems to exonerate Buzz from the switch
error that almost cost the landing.)


~ CT

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 15:28:31 +0000, Ron Baalke wrote:

Margaret Hamilton, leader of the team that developed the
flight software for the agency's Apollo missions, has been
granted a NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific
and technical contributions.

And I thought her most important accomplishment was playing the Wicked
Witch in the Wizard of OZ! G