Courtesy | NASA
Courtesy | NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon cargo module lifts off at Cape Canaveral in December 2019. The MIRA surgical robot will be transported to the International Space Station aboard a similar spacecraft.
A surgical robot developed by Nebraska’s Shane Farritor is headed to the International Space Station for testing.
The Miniaturized In vivo Robotic Assistant — or MIRA — will be among the experiments riding to the space station on the NASA’s NG-20 cargo mission. It was scheduled to launch Jan. 29 from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 but has been rescheduled to 11:07 a.m. Jan. 30.
It will be the first surgical robot on the space station and one of the first times remote surgery tasks have been tested in space. The mission will help identify the next steps for creating surgical technologies suitable for long-distance space travel, but it also has implications for health care here on Earth.
The launch will be available to view online.
