Space surgery: a robot surgeon first performed an operation on the ISS – News

The compact design of the robot is the size of a microwave oven.

Virtual Incision

The spaceMIRA miniature robot surgeon, which was sent to the International Space Station on January 30, performed the first “surgery” by cutting rubber bands.

The robot was controlled remotely from the American state of Nebraska, reports CNN.

This event opens up the potential not only for future long-duration flights in space, where there may be a need for surgical interventions, but also can solve the problem of access to medical care in remote corners of the world, scientists are convinced.

The spaceMIRA (Miniaturized In Vivo Robotic Assistant) robot weighs less than a kilogram and is the size of a microwave oven. This makes it an easy tool to use in space.

Shane Farritor, co-founder and CTO of Virtual Incision (the startup that developed SpaceMIRA), said the robot has two “arms” similar to human hands. The left hand holds, and the right hand cuts, performing operations.

“It gives a surgeon on Earth hands and eyes, allowing him to perform many procedures in an invasive way (operating through small holes),” Farritor said.

How was the “operation”?

Shane Farritor says that the robot was controlled remotely, and six surgeons participated in the experiment.

For the operation, a simulated fabric was pre-made from rubber bands. During the procedure, spaceMIRA had to cut it with its “hands”.

One of his hands stretched the fabric, and the other cut it with scissors. He performed these manipulations under pressure, which is a typical phenomenon for surgery. Scientists assure: the robot successfully coped with the task.

However, it was not without problems. Thus, researchers note that one of them is latency, or the time delay between sending a command and receiving it by the robot.

According to colorectal surgeon Michael Jobst, who participated in the experiment, the delay was about 0.85 seconds.

“If a patient (alive) is bleeding, my job is to stop it immediately. Five seconds in surgery is an eternity, and a fraction of a second or half a second is of great importance. So it was a challenge for us,” Jobst said.

“NASA wants to go further, and long-duration spaceflight will put new demands on medical care in many ways. There are many questions that still need to be answered. We wanted to show that it is possible, and we think this is a good step in the right direction.” “, noted Farritor.

It will be recalled that the assistant robot In vivo (or MIRA) was sent to the space station during the execution of the NASA NG-20 mission. It is planned to “return” it in the spring.