by piece over the last 16 years. and you can thank what s called the canada arm 2 for that. it built the iss while in orbit and grabs incoming spacecraft docking them to the station. there are no do-overs in space, meaning the canada arm 2 can t miss. so it s robotics are some of the most precise and accurate technologies you can find. that same technology used on the space station was applied to a surgical robot here on earth, a robot that wants to remove the word inoperable from our vocabulary. outside an operating room at foothills hospital in calgary, canada, dr. garnett sutherland preps his patient. we ve gone through everything and you re going to have the operation on the right side. reporter: lee is 22 years old and has an aneurysm. today he is undergoing brain surgery to remove it. but it s what s happening alongside the surgeons that
night otherwise. at the robot s workstation dr. sutherland removes the aneurysm from lee s brain. believe it or not, it s over. reporter: when the aerospace engineers first built canada arm 2 for the space station, they never dreamed it would help people rebuild their lives. those unintended benefits continue to extend to our daily lives here on earth. just break off a piece. reporter: including what you eat, and how you exercise. we use all the different surfaces of the space station, so they re in different configurations. making a fist something we do to show resolve. to defend ourselves. to declare victory. so cvs health provides expert support and vital medicines. at our infusion centers or in patients homes.
i remember saying in the letter, you know, you people make robots for very unusual environments. reporter: mcdonald detweiler and associates knows all about building robots for extreme environments. they have worked with nasa and the canadian space agency since the 1970s, and they built the canada arm 2, the robotic arm on the international space station. the aerospace engineers decided to adapt that same technology for dr. sutherland s surgical robot. but building a robot that could function inside an mri machine in the operating room was a new challenge, even for the space engineers. one of the absolute requirements was that wherever we control this robot, which we thought about outside the operating room, controlling the robot inside the operating room, that place has to recreate the sight, the sound and the touch of surgery. we want this robot to feel.
fresh supplies delivered early this morning by dragon. that s the cargo ship that launched two days ago by the private firm space x. and the canada arm 2 with commander at the controls now as the space x three in its grip. took place right on time at 6:14 a.m. central. while station and dragon were 260 miles above the nile river. and there dragon went. hey, dom, pick up the story. you can never really underestimate just how much a feat of human talent and skills and engineering it takes to do something like this. you got to remember the space station is hurtling through space. it s an incredible moment when