NASA is testing organ drone delivery

Organ shortages are a massive problem for patients, with more than 103,000 people in the US awaiting an organ for transplant as of 2024, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Part of the problem is it can be hard to move organs around. Companies like Paragonix Technologies are building delivery tools for safer transport, but now, a more familiar name is getting involved in organ delivery: NASA.

You read that right. On April 21, the federal agency, fresh off its successful Artemis II moon flyby, announced that NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia and the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) would partner to research whether drones could safely and efficiently deliver organs needed for transplantation.

Together, the organizations will test drones models, flight planning, sensing technology, and safety design to help reduce delays in transportation and ideally improve care, according to a press release. They will also study how well drones carry sensitive biological materials, i.e., organs.

“This is a chance to apply NASA Langley technology to a real-world problem that can save people’s lives who are waiting for transplants,” John Koelling, director of aeronautics research directorate at NASA Langley, said in the release.

Why drones? Organs are currently delivered in all kinds of ways, from commercial flights to chartered flights to ground transportation, Kaitlin Swanner, senior policy analyst at UNOS, told us. Drones can be most useful, she added, in the first and last mile of the organ’s journey to skip traffic, waterways, or congestion between the origin and the destination hospital.

“When we find an organ that’s a good fit, we want to make sure we can get that to [patients],” she said. “But because organs are now traveling farther, that introduces more logistical complexity.”

There’s already been a lot of research and investment put into drones, Yin-Hsuen Chen, a senior geospatial data scientist at Old Dominion University said, adding that this creates “a lot of potential” for medical delivery.

Imagine trying to get an organ across Manhattan during rush hour, George McLeod, director of Old Dominion University’s Center for Geospatial Science, Education, and Analysis, explained. “We could potentially have a big improvement by using a drone to circumvent traffic and to improve the speed of delivery,” he said.

NASA has already conducted initial tests with simulated organs, Swanner said, and the next step is to test with a human research organ. That will help the researchers see how well the drone handles the weight of the organ in its packaging. They will also monitor temperature, vibration, and altitude and will biopsy the organ before and after the flight to check for possible impact.

“We’re really just looking to build on the existing literature here and push the envelope in terms of the distance of the drone operations, and then figure out what’s next in terms of partnerships,” Swanner said, adding that hospitals have already expressed interest.

Why NASA? While NASA may be better known for its space travel, it also works heavily in aeronautics and aviation. A major part of this transport process is to safely navigate airspace shared with military and commercial aircrafts (which is where the first “A” in NASA comes in) while automated and without a pilot, McLeod said.

Still, the agency’s previous scientific accomplishments certainly bring hope to the industry, including for McLeod. “If they can put people in space and around the moon…then they certainly should be able to execute delivery across town,” he said.

And if it’s successful, it could change medical delivery in the future in all sorts of ways.

“Ten, 15 years from now, It wouldn’t surprise me at all to look up and always see a drone or two above us on our daily commute,” McLeod said.