NASA, in collaboration with Google, is testing an AI medical assistant that could help astronauts address health problems during long-duration missions to the Moon or Mars. This tool, called the “Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant” (CMO-DA), is designed to provide medical guidance when there is no doctor on board and when communication with Earth is delayed or impossible.
The editorial office reports that the system was created on Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform and has capabilities for processing voice, text, and images. The project's source code belongs to NASA, and the models have been specifically refined by the agency. The assistant has been tested in scenarios such as ankle injury, kidney pain, and earache, with its diagnostic accuracy evaluated by doctors — including an astronaut — to be between 74% and 88%.
Future plans include integration with medical devices and adaptation to space-specific conditions such as microgravity. If the project is successful, this technology could contribute to delivering advanced diagnostic capabilities not only in space but also in remote areas on Earth.
Farid Alizade