Space-station robot surgeon will not require human help

A ROBOT surgeon is to go into space to practise potentially life-saving operations in zero gravity.

Mira – a miniaturised in vivo robotic assistant – will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024 and will work autonomously while being monitored by experts back on Earth.

The robot has been used by surgeons on Earth for operations and can be operated remotely.

But its developers at the University of Nebraska-lincoln hope to refine its capabilities, shrink the machine and enable it to operate autonomously.

On the ISS, it will perform delicate tasks, such as cutting rubber bands and pushing metal rings along a wire, to see if it may be able to cope with surgery.

Mira, developed in 2006, was designed to be as minimally invasive as possible. It has received $100,000 (£82,000) from Nasa, matched by a similar sum in private investment.

The US space agency is hopeful that, in future, emergency surgery can be carried out in space, if necessary.

Initially, a doctor on Earth would control the machine via a remote link but, in 50 to 100 years, the robot may be able to perform operations without human oversight, its creators claim.

It is being made to operate autonomously to lighten the technical demands placed on the space station’s communications bandwidth, and it is being redesigned to fit and operate within a microwave-oven sized crate.

“The astronaut flips a switch, the process starts and the robot does its work by itself,” said its inventor, Prof Shane Farritor of the University of Nebraska-lincoln.