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By Taylor Nicioli and Kristin Fisher, CNN February 13, 2024

A tiny surgical robot in residence at the International Space Station completed its first surgery demo in zero gravity on Saturday. The robot, known as spaceMIRA – which stands for Miniaturized In Vivo Robotic Assistant – performed several operations on simulated tissue at the orbiting laboratory while remotely operated by multiple-area surgeons from approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) below in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The milestone is a step forward in developing technology that could have implications not just for successful long-term human space travel, where surgical emergencies could happen, but also for establishing access to medical care in remote areas on Earth, such as in rural areas or military battlefields.

The US goal of pushing exploration deeper into space includes the possibility of journeys that could take years – a round-trip to Mars, for example, could take about two years to complete, according to NASA.

The demonstration on Saturday called for the remote surgeon to control the robots’ hands to provide tension to the simulated tissue – made of rubber bands – and use the other hand to dissect the elastic tissue with scissors. A total of six surgeons performed remote tests with the robot, and each demonstration – dissecting the correct piece of tissue under pressure, a common surgical task, was considered successful.

One of the challenges when attempting to control a robot in space from Earth is latency, or the delay between the time the command is sent and the time the robot receives it. The delay was about 0.85 of a second, said Dr. Michael Jobst, a colorectal surgeon who was part of the demonstration with spaceMIRA on Saturday.

Available in: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/13/world/mira-robot-first-surgery-in-space-scn/index.html. Adapted.