NASA and Google Team Up for AI Medical Care in Space

HOUSTON, Texas — As missions to the Moon and Mars grow longer, NASA is developing an AI-powered medical assistant to support astronaut health during deep space travel. The Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), built in collaboration with Google, aims to provide immediate medical guidance when doctors are unreachable.

The CMO-DA will operate without real-time communication with Earth, essential during the communication delays experienced on missions to Mars. This tool represents a significant shift towards more autonomous medical care in space.

NASA’s plan involves gradually making on-orbit medical care more independent from Earth. David Cruley, a customer engineer at Google, stated that the AI runs in Google Cloud’s Vertex AI environment and features multimodal capabilities, including speech and image recognition.

The system has been tested in various scenarios, including evaluating ankle injuries and pain, achieving high accuracy rates of 74% for flank pain, 80% for ear pain, and 88% for ankle injury treatments.

Future development plans include integrating medical data from devices and enhancing the AI’s situational awareness to address challenges unique to microgravity. Although Google has not confirmed if they will seek regulatory approval to use the CMO-DA on Earth, its implications for healthcare in remote areas are promising.

Cruley emphasized that the CMO-DA could not only improve space medicine but also provide valuable insights that could enhance medical practices back on Earth. The project highlights the ongoing collaboration between space exploration and technological advancements, aiming to ensure astronaut health in the next frontier of human exploration.