NASA and Google are creating an AI medical assistant to maintain the health of Mars-bound astronauts

NASA and Google develop AI for diagnosing health issues on Mars missions.

: NASA, in partnership with Google, is developing an AI medical assistant called Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant or CMO-DA. This tool is designed to support astronauts on long-duration missions, like those potentially headed to Mars, by providing medical assistance when access to a doctor is impossible. The technology operates within Google Cloud's Vertex AI and has been tested in scenarios like ankle and ear injuries, showing diagnostics accuracy levels. NASA aims to further train this model with additional data sources, possibly extending its use to terrestrial applications.

NASA and Google have collaborated to develop the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), an AI system designed to help maintain astronaut health during long missions to the Moon and Mars. Built using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform under a fixed-price public sector contract, the assistant is engineered to work autonomously, including during periods when communication with Earth is delayed or unavailable.

The AI assistant uses multimodal input, processing speech, text, and images to support astronauts in diagnosing symptoms and recommending treatments in the absence of a physician. This capability addresses one of the key challenges of deep-space travel, where real-time consultation with Earth-based doctors is impossible due to signal delays.

Testing scenarios for CMO-DA included common yet mission-impacting conditions such as ankle injuries, flank pain, and ear pain. In evaluations by a panel of physicians that included an astronaut, the AI achieved diagnostic accuracies of 88% for ankle injuries, 74% for flank pain, and 80% for ear pain, showing promising reliability in simulated medical situations.

The project’s potential extends beyond spaceflight, as its underlying technology could be adapted for use in remote or underserved areas on Earth. In such regions, where access to trained medical professionals is limited, the AI could serve as a valuable support tool for delivering timely and accurate medical guidance.

NASA maintains ownership of the assistant’s source code and contributes to refining the model, while Google provides the AI infrastructure and development platform. This partnership highlights the benefits of combining space agency expertise with advanced commercial AI capabilities to create autonomous medical solutions that could benefit both astronauts and people on Earth.

Sources: TechCrunch, TechShots, NewsBytes

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