"Susan, get ready, turn on the remote surgery system, Dr. Yang is ready to operate on Steven."

Collins was more familiar with Houston's liaison with the ISS than the chief medical officer, who had traveled from Washington, D.C., and he became the de facto coordinator of the operation.

The network communication composed of three satellites is the only link between the ISS and Houston, and it is also the only guarantee for Steven's life.

Susan and David Hawley, who are on the verge of despair, hear the command and immediately take action, whether it can be done or not, this is the only hope.

They had already installed the remote surgical system, the sterilely packaged robotic arm was protected by a shield, the flat plate that replaced the operating table was also securely fastened, and Steven was firmly anchored to the plate by the restraint device.

In microgravity, if not well fixed, any fluttering of the human body under weightlessness can be fatal.

This is the first space surgery in human history, and it is also the use of a remote surgical system, the International Space Station prepares so much equipment and drugs, there are not many times when real doctors need to deal with it, the last medical event was an astronaut who suddenly had a left internal jugular vein thrombosis, causing a high degree of tension among doctors on the ground.

After the doctors assessed the condition, they first injected the anticoagulant enoxaparin subcutaneously with the space station's medicine box, and 43 days later, the rocket sent a batch of the oral anticoagulant apixaban to the International Space Station, and the astronaut successfully returned home with the medication.

This time, Steven's condition was completely different, it was not something that could be treated with medication, and interventional surgery had to be performed.

"Do you need to adjust the station's posture?" David Holly became Susan's only helper.

Richard is in charge of the engineering aspects of the space station: "Maintain the original position, check the air pressure of the space station, check the power system, pay attention to the impact of micrometeorites on the space station, and if it is ready, communication tests will begin." ”

The space network relies on a tracking and data relay satellite system located in high orbits, which primarily uses radio signals to communicate with terrestrial antennas. Ground antennas receive signals and send them over fixed lines to NASA centers, where NASA's computer systems convert the signals into readable data that is reversed and delayed by less than one second when the data is sent back from Earth to the ISS.

The delay is not more than 1 second, the signal is in a stable state, sometimes due to various reasons of interference, the signal is weakened, and the communication will be delayed or interrupted.

Even if a stable signal can be achieved, a delay of 1 second can be fatal for this high-risk surgery.

Not long ago, the network communication of the International Space Station was expanded, and there is already a bandwidth of 600 megabytes, which is not strictly enough to meet the needs of remote surgery.

The four flexible robotic arms, which were jointly researched by NASA in cooperation with MIT and Intuition, should be the best surgical system in the world at present, which not only has good accuracy, but also has good flexibility and stability, but the defects still exist and there is no good haptic feedback.

The surgical robot was originally developed by NASA for the medical treatment of astronauts on the space station, and was later converted to civilian use.

Therefore, NASA's surgical robot is the originator of the entire surgical robot industry.

The Houston Ground Control Center has a room dedicated to operating the surgical robots of the space station, and Jim Bassa has sent a lot of security guards to take care of the security, from the door, the aisles, the elevators, and the stairs, all of which are closely guarded to prevent the operation from being disturbed.

In addition to the security guards of Space City, the Houston Police Department and the FBI have sent officers to protect the building, and Jim Bassa has the strongest authority at this time.

The operation room has become a safe house, with only Huang Jiacai, Cheng Liquan, Johannathan, and Collins accompanying them, and the others are all outside, and the engineers who deal with emergency failures can only be on standby outside the isolation zone of the room.

Journalists, who are restricted from entering this building, could be reckless in their recklessness and let all their efforts go to waste.

Even in the face of overwhelming scolding, Jim Bassa ruthlessly blocked reporters from Houston's space city, and the entire space city was closed.

Once the emergency relief escalated to the national level, Jimbasa received direct authorization from the president, and all kinds of strong support followed.

Space giants such as Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and others are ready to provide support, and SpaeX's Falcon 9 is ready to lift off again for intensive launches, sending possible medical supplies and even personnel to the ISS.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, both private space companies, have also joined the rescue plan to be deployed.

Symantec is responsible for securing the station's communications network with the ground to prevent hackers from disrupting remote operations.

The meteorological department has upgraded the level of meteorological monitoring to provide meteorological forecasts at any time, and meteorology is the biggest destabilizing factor that interferes with communications.

On the surface, there was no shock, but all the support forces were in place, if not for anything else, just for the success of this operation.

Every request of Yang Ping will be turned into an order, and finally turned into an effective resource to support this operation.

Medically speaking, Steven's telesurgery is almost impossible, and no one can operate a telemedicine device to such an extent: free access to the blood vessels of the brainstem.

But this Chinese can do it, he is the only hope, all the resources will revolve around him, in order to serve the purpose.

"Telecom Connection!"

"Start testing!"

The 600 megabytes of bandwidth are all used for surgery, but in this way, the communication is still in an unstable state due to signal problems.

Yang Ping began to operate four manipulators, which would be a huge challenge to overcome the random and irregular delays and interruptions.

Network test, picture delay, unable to achieve the accuracy of the operation.

Can it improve internet speed and stability? If you can, the success rate will be higher.

Yang Ping stopped the test, he hoped that the network speed would be faster and the network would be more stable.

Jim Bassa and Richard came into the "safe house", Richard said: "There are two options that can help us, and they can be called at any time, the broadband global communications satellite communication system (WGS), which is a military communication system, with the White House coming forward, it is not a problem to lend it to us temporarily, and there is also a way to call all the satellites of SpaeX's Starlink plan to support this operation, but there is no guarantee that there will be no delay, and there are too many unstable factors in space communication." ”

Indeed, the communications of the International Space Station, supported by three satellites, are difficult to support such a high-risk operation.

If you can use either of these two communication systems to obtain strong and stable communication, the success rate of the operation will be higher, and at this time, even a little improvement is meaningful.

"The broadband global communications satellite communication system (WGS), the U.S. global military needs its support, I don't know how much communication capacity can be called to us, it will be more convenient to call SpaeX's Starlink satellite, it can stop all current services, temporarily used for our rescue mission."

Yang Ping thought for a while: "Which one to use, you decide for yourself, I need more powerful network communication, and as soon as possible!" ”

Even if there is no delay, using a robot to do this kind of surgery is like climbing to the sky, and there are all kinds of risks hidden, and the more chance of winning, the more hope.

With just a phone call, spaeX immediately supported the rescue mission, and the headquarters of the Starlink project began to adjust the satellite connections, all of which were connected to NASA's International Space Station and Houston, forming a dedicated network for surgery.

Weather can affect the stability of the network, and weather monitoring agencies monitor the cloud map over Houston 24 hours a day, and if there is a concentration of clouds, if there are signs of heavy rain, use cloud dispersal if necessary.

The communication problem was solved, although it was not quite up to the requirements, but it was already the best conditions.

In addition to communication problems, other problems, such as power failures and micrometeorite impacts, are potential risks, and cracks have appeared in the module section that Japan is responsible for building, almost killing several astronauts.

Embolism of small arteries in the brain stem, delay or interruption of communication due to any reason, shaking of the patient's body, and loss of control of the robotic arm will make Yang Ping lose control of the operation.

Once these problems occur during the catheter, guidewire and coil of the catheter, guidewire and coil are in the process of entering the target blood vessel, it is almost like a sudden power outage during surgery, and it is pitch black.

It's like a racing driver, suddenly it's pitch black in front of you, you can't see what degree, no matter how long this time is, no matter how high the level of the racer is, the result is a car crash and death.

Test the newsletter again! It's a lot better than before.

"Power system?"

Richard asks in another room, which is the command center for the rescue mission.

"Checking!"

David Hawley was a little nervous, trembling with an instrument in his hand to test the power system.

Yang Ping sat in front of the console, entered the field of vision, and began to familiarize himself with the operation of the robotic arm in the new network environment again.

"Someone is attacking our communication system!"

Symantec's security team discovered dozens of attacks, all of which were neutralized by their protective systems, and they immediately reported them to Jimbarsa.

"Damn, at this time, why are people attacking us, we are saving people!" Jim Barsa's head is all big.

Richard was also nervous: "Aren't we a dedicated communications connection?" Isolated from the Internet? ”

Symantec's cybersecurity expert shook his head and said, "As long as the device is physically networked, there is no such thing as isolation, but rest assured, these attacks are pediatric and we have defused them." ”

With so many dangerous factors, and now another hacker attack, Jim Bass is very worried that there have been American high school students hacking into the Department of Defense's website before.

"Maybe it's a restless middle school student? These restless guys. Jim Bass scolded.

Cybersecurity experts agree with Jim Bassa's statement: "Looking at the attack methods, it is relatively immature, and it should be a middle school student joking." ”

400 kilometers above the ground, the International Space Station flies over people's heads at a speed of more than 28,000 kilometers per hour, and who would have thought that there is an astronaut on it preparing for surgery.

The first is the latest.