One slice through rubber bands may pave a new pathway for space surgeons. A robot on the International Space Station (ISS), remote-controlled by a big team on Earth, simulated surgical cuts on Feb. 10 in a historic first for space medicine. Astronauts say this work will help them fly further from Earth than ever before. A procedure like dealing with appendicitis, noted NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli during a Wednesday (Feb. 21) call with reporters, “can be a big deal if you’re far away from home and don’t have a surgeon on board.” While crews do fly with doctors on board, not every physician is specialized in every system of the human body, she said in the space-to-ground chat. “Those (robotic) surgeries,” added Moghbeli, “will enable us to go on these longer-duration missions, further from Earth. So it’s a real game-changer.” The mighty robot doing the simulated surgery is known as spaceMIRA, or “Miniaturized in vivo Robotic Assistant.” The two-pound (0.9-kilogram) device flew to the ISS aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft earlier this year. The two-armed robot comes courtesy of Virtual Incision, a startup founded by faculty members from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And it’s part of a huge set of medical research NASA wants to push forward as the agency aims to land humans on the moon as soon as 2026 with Artemis 3, on the eventual path to exploring Mars as well. The NASA-led Artemis program aims to establish a base of operations at the moon’s south pole, but like any remote environment astronauts will not be able to fly home quickly if a medical emergency arises. SpaceMIRA shows it may be possible to get around the small time delays in orbit; perhaps that capability could be extended to the two-second communications gap moon as well, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during the call with the ISS.
Full story : Astronauts celebrate success of 1st surgery robot on ISS: ‘It’s a real game-changer.’