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Robot medic to boldly go where no surgeon has gone before
MIRA, ‘miniaturised in vivo robotic assistant’, will head to the ISS to practice life-saving operations while being monitored on Earth
A robotic surgeon is to be flown to space to practice potentially life-saving operations in zero-gravity.
MIRA, short for “miniaturised in vivo robotic assistant”, will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024 and will work autonomously while being closely monitored by experts back on Earth.
The gadget has already been used by surgeons on Earth for operations on real people and has been shown to be able to be operated remotely.
But its developers at the University of Nebraska hope to refine its capabilities, shrink the machine and also allow it to become an autonomous operator.
Once on the ISS, it will be tasked with cutting taut rubber bands and pushing metal rings along a wire, among other tasks, in a bid to replicate surgery.
MIRA was first developed in 2006 and is designed to be as minimally invasive as possible and has received $100,000 (£81,000) funding from Nasa on top of more than $100 million (£81 million) in private investment.
The US space agency is hopeful that the technology will one day allow for emergency surgery to take place in space if necessary. For example, a doctor on Earth could use the machine and a remote link to remove a ruptured appendix of an astronaut on the way to or from Mars.
In 50 to 100 years, this operation may be able to be conducted by the robot itself, without any human oversight or intervention needed, its creators claim.
The robot is being made to operate autonomously to lighten the technical demands placed on the communications bandwidth, and it is now being redesigned to fit and operate inside a microwave-sized crate.
“The astronaut flips a switch, the process starts and the robot does its work by itself,” Professor Shane Farritor, inventor of the robot and a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said. “Two hours later, the astronaut switches it off and it’s done.”
“As people go further and deeper into space, they might need to do surgery someday. We’re working toward that goal.”
The US Army has also provided some funding for the project in the hope it may one day allow specialist doctors to treat soldiers gravely wounded on the battlefield when medics are unavailable or ill-equipped.