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Developed by University of Nebraska engineering professor Shane Farritor, the Mira (Miniaturized In Vivo Robotic Assistant) device is designed to enable minimally invasive remote surgery.
NASA recently awarded the university $100,000 to ready the surgical robot for a 2024 test mission aboard the ISS.
“NASA has been a long-term supporter of this research and, as a culmination of that effort, our robot will have a chance to fly on the ISS,” said Farritor.
The co-founder of the Virtual Incision start-up has worked on the robot with colleagues for nearly 20 years. During the next year, Farritor and engineering graduate student Rachael Wagner will write software, configure Mira to fit inside a space station experiment locker, and exhaustively test the device to make sure it is robust enough to survive launch, and to perform as anticipated in space.
The robot has two key advantages, the researchers said – first, it can be inserted through a small incision, enabling doctors to perform abdominal surgery in a minimally invasive manner. In previous tests, surgeons have successfully used the device to perform colon resections.
Secondly, the technology could enable surgeons to work remotely. This could one day include repairing an astronaut’s ruptured appendix during a Mars mission, the researchers said, or removing shrapnel from a soldier injured thousands of miles away.
In a previous experiment, retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson took the robot’s controls while at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, directing it to perform surgery-like tasks in an operating room 900 miles away at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre in Omaha.
During its trip aboard the space station, Mira will work autonomously. Inside a microwave-sized experiment locker, it will cut tautly stretched rubber bands and push metal rings along a wire, simulating gestures used in surgery.
“These simulations are very important because of all the data we will collect during the tests,” Wagner said.
Although Farritor anticipates Mira will function on its own in 50 to 100 years, the mission’s goal is not autonomy, but to fine-tune the robot’s operation in zero gravity. It is being programmed to work autonomously to conserve space station communications bandwidth, and to minimise the amount of time astronauts spend with the experiment.
“The astronaut flips a switch, the process starts and the robot does its work by itself,” Farritor said. “Two hours later, the astronaut switches it off and it’s done.”
He added: “As people go further and deeper into space, they might need to do surgery someday. We’re working toward that goal.”
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