NASA and Google have collaborated to develop an AI-powered medical assistant to assist astronauts with health concerns on long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. As human space exploration progresses beyond low Earth orbit, real-time contact with Earth becomes impossible, with delays of up to 20 minutes each way. Emergency evacuations could take months or years, and medical supplies will be scarce.

The Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA) is designed to provide autonomous diagnosis and treatment support. It is intended for astronauts who do not have onboard doctors and has a multimodal interface for speech, text, and image inputs. Built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, it will evolve through model training, with NASA retaining source code ownership.

Early testing on simulated cases (ankle injury, flank pain, and ear pain) showed diagnosis accuracy of 88%, 74%, and 80%, respectively. The system displayed efficient evaluation, medical history collection, clinical reasoning, and treatment planning.

Future improvements will integrate data from onboard diagnostic instruments, tailor guidance to microgravity conditions, and provide more context-specific therapy options.

While originally designed for space, the device could also benefit remote and underserved areas on Earth, potentially enhancing access to medical expertise where specialists are unavailable.