NASA and Google create AI medical assistant for Mars missions

NASA and Google are working on a prototype of an AI-powered medical assistant called the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA). The system is designed to autonomously diagnose and treat symptoms in space when communication with Earth is unavailable or a doctor is not on board, PCMag reports.

CMO-DA runs on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI environment and supports multimodal interaction—voice, text, and images. NASA owns the assistant’s source code and participates in tuning the models. The platform provides access to Google and third-party models.

The system has already been tested in three scenarios: ear pain, side pain, and ankle injury. All cases were evaluated by doctors, including an astronaut. The diagnostic accuracy ranged from 74% to 88%, depending on the scenario.

The project is being implemented under a fixed contract with Google Public Sector, which includes cloud services, development infrastructure and model training. In the future, NASA plans to integrate additional data sources, including medical devices, and adapt the model to microgravity conditions.

CMO-DA is part of NASA's strategy to gradually transition to autonomous medicine in space. If successfully validated in orbit, the technology could be adapted for use on Earth — particularly in isolated regions or where access to healthcare is limited.

Recall, NASA recently told how it has been supporting the operation of the Curiosity rover for 13 years.