A human kidney flew across NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on June 5, and the real story begins with what didn’t happen. The organ wasn’t rushed into an operating room, as no surgeon scrubbed in while a family waited outside. From Space.com:
NASA is hoping to use drones to speed up organ delivery for transplant patients.
A flight test earlier this month at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia saw a drone pick up a kidney and fly it for the first time beyond “line of sight”, or the distance from which a drone is visible by an operator. Keeping a line of sight on a drone is a typical requirement for flight safety, but NASA is developing tools that may allow these machines to fly further away from operators in populated environments more regularly.
The kidney on the June 5 flight test was not viable for organ transplantation, which is why the agency and partner United Network for Organ Sharing were able to use it, according to WTKR. If all goes to plan with future tests conducted with NASA Langley, however, UNOS aims to fly organ-bearing drones as far as 15 miles (24 km), in between hospitals for example, to allow for swift and safe delivery to waiting patients. The drone collaboration was created to “explore faster, more reliable ways to transport donor organs using advanced aviation technologies”, according to space agency materials published in April.
Drones may have a better ability than larger aircraft to navigate ground logistics or maneuver in dense or hard-to-reach delivery areas. What’s more, drones might be able to do so faster than aircraft, which is crucial: organs can only last so long during transportation.
The test used additional radios on the drones intended to allow pilots to keep an eye on the drones even while out of sight. “What that means, more or less, is we’re going to have the pilot in command be about a mile away inside of a control room,” Kyle Smalling, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley, told WAVY.com.
The kidneys used in the test had been donated for research after they were ruled out for transplant. Researchers still treated them like precious cargo because someday a flight like this may carry an organ that can save a life.
NASA Langley Research Center, the United Network for Organ Sharing, and LifeNet Health used a drone to transport human kidneys beyond visual line of sight. The flights lasted about 15 minutes, and researchers biopsied the kidneys and placed them on preservation pumps before and after the flights while tracking temperature, pressure, and altitude. Early results showed no evidence that the flights damaged the organs.
Mark Johnson, interim CEO of UNOS, called innovation in organ transportation essential because more than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving transplants. HRSA’s public organ donation data puts the national waiting list at 103,223 men, women, and children. Seventeen people die each day waiting, and another name is added every eight minutes.
Those numbers don’t leave much room for slow systems, missed handoffs, or traffic jams.
Transportation is one of the quiet pressures inside transplant medicine. A donor organ has a limited window of usefulness once recovered. Delays hurt organ function, affect outcomes, or stop a transplant from happening at all.
A kidney can travel by plane, ambulance, courier car, or handoff chain, but the weakest link often sits close to the ground, where congestion, routing, weather, and scheduling cost valuable time.
John Koelling, director of the Aeronautics Research Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center, said the project gives NASA a chance to apply Langley technology to a real-world problem that saves people waiting for transplants. The work uses NASA tools in flight planning, sensing, safety systems, and beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations.
Space-age language sounds distant, but the goal here is deeply human: get the organ where it needs to go with less delay and less risk.
The study also shows why serious medical progress frequently arrives in careful steps. Nobody should pretend drones will replace the transplant logistics network next week.
Hellbound and Down 