Groundbreaking satellite-powered surgery achieved by Chinese doctors
Chinese doctors just made history by performing complex robotic surgeries on patients more than 5,000km away, all with the help of a satellite orbiting high above Earth.
Led by Prof. Rong Liu from Beijing, the team used cutting-edge tech to bridge the distance and make remote surgery a reality.
How the surgeons tackled the lag
Operating from Lhasa on patients in Beijing, the surgeons faced major lag—over 600 milliseconds (way past the safe zone).
They tackled this using smart latency compensation so robotic arms stayed precise.
If their satellite link glitched, a backup 5G connection kicked in within milliseconds.
Plus, they managed to cut data use by over half without losing video quality.
The breakthrough could bring life-saving care
All five surgeries went smoothly—minimal blood loss and every patient left the hospital within a day.
With nearly 150,000km of data travel involved, this breakthrough could bring life-saving care to places that were out of reach before.
For anyone into tech or medicine, it's proof that distance doesn't have to mean impossible anymore.