Programmer posts source code of first moon mission on GitHub

The source code used to control the computers for the Apollo 11 mission has been put online by a programmer. The code, written in an assembly language, eventually completed the first-ever moon mission.

A list of files can be found on GitHub and can be downloaded by anyone, Quartz discovered. The source code is intended for the Apollo Guidance Computer, which was used to control the lunar lander that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used in 1969 as the first humans to step on the moon. Former NASA intern Chris Garry has put the code online.

For the moon mission, NASA had to develop an assembly language to control the Apollo computer. The source code therefore provides an insight into the functions that the programmers, who were affiliated with the prestigious MIT institute, had to develop for the lunar lander, at a time when computers were not commonplace.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that the source code of the Apollo 11 mission has been made available. More than ten years ago, the code was also put online by researcher Ron Burkey, who, among other things, made a simulation of the Apollo Guidance Computer.