International Space Station

This is a screen grab from a NASA broadcast showing a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station today (Jan. 30, 2024) with the spaceMIRA from Virtual Incision onboard. [Image courtesy of NASA]Virtual Incision announced today that its MIRA surgical robot system is currently in transit to the International Space Station.

Lincoln, Nebraska–based Virtual Incision in 2022 received a grant for the MIRA platform to be used in a technology demonstration aboard the ISS. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded the grant to use the miniaturized robotic-associated surgery (RAS) platform on the 2024 technology demonstration mission.

Today, the company said its spaceMIRA device currently sits aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It says the robot will assess the impact of zero gravity when performing simulated surgical tasks. During a portion of the experiment…