{"id":12547,"date":"2020-04-07T17:47:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T09:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-companies-rally-to-supply-medical-equipment-amid-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2020-04-07T17:47:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T09:47:28","slug":"space-companies-rally-to-supply-medical-equipment-amid-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-companies-rally-to-supply-medical-equipment-amid-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Space companies rally to supply medical equipment amid pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A \u201cbridge ventilator\u201d designed by Virgin Orbit. Credit: Virgin Orbit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While production of rockets and satellites continues across much of the space industry amid the coronavirus pandemic, engineers at several space companies \u2014 including SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and Blue Origin \u2014 have started working on medical devices and protective equipment in response to shortages in hospitals across the United States.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit has designed a simplified ventilator at its rocket factory in Long Beach, California, while SpaceX has agreed to supply valves for ventilators produced by the medical supply company Medtronic. The launch firm said it contacted California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose office connected Virgin Orbit with the California Emergency Medical Services Authority.<\/p>\n

California government officials put Virgin Orbit, backed by billionaire Richard Branson, with the Bridge Ventilator Consortium, a group led by doctors, engineers and scientists at the University of California Irvine and the University of Texas at Austin. The consortium was established to help set up production of simple, producible ventilators.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually we\u2019re working on rocket engines and launch systems that take satellites to orbit, but with the looming COVID-19 crisis, we reached out to Gov. Newsom and asked what can we do to help,\u201d said Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit\u2019s CEO. \u201cWe assigned some of our best innovators in engineering and manufacturability on the problem: How to make a ventilator quickly that can be produced in mass.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a YouTube video posted by Virgin Orbit, Kevin Zagorski, the company\u2019s lead engineer on the ventilator project, said emphasis is on finding the \u201csimplest, scalable and soonest available design.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ventilator designed by Zagorski\u2019s team uses a windshield wiper motor to drive a machine that mechanically compresses a self-inflating bag, also called a manual resuscitator or Ambu bag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s not difficult to make devices that can perform this mechanical compression of medical Ambu bags, what is difficult, and what is something that we at Virgin Orbit can bring to bear, is a very, very simple and robust design that we can get out to the people who are in the most need and the hospitals that are in the most need of devices like these very, very quickly,\u201d Zagorski said.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit says the simple device could be used in the treatment of moderate cases of the novel coronavirus, freeing up more expensive full-size ventilators for the most ill patients.<\/p>\n