NASA, in collaboration with Google, is working on creating a unique medical digital assistant based on artificial intelligence to provide support to astronauts during long-duration space missions to the Moon and Mars. The new tool, Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), is set to become a reliable diagnostician and consultant in situations where contacting a doctor or establishing communication with Earth is not possible.
This is reported by Business • Media
How the Digital Medical Assistant Works
The system is integrated into Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and utilizes multimodal capabilities: speech recognition, text analysis, and medical image processing. The development is part of the Google Public Sector subscription, with NASA having full access to the source code and actively participating in retraining the models.
The initial tests of the AI assistant were conducted on three simulated cases: ankle injury, side pain, and earache. The testing was carried out by three specialists, including an astronaut. The results showed diagnostic accuracy and treatment plan correctness of 74%, 80%, and 88% respectively for each situation.
Technology Potential and Development Prospects
Google Public Sector engineer David Crowley emphasized that the project’s roadmap includes further expanding the assistant’s functionality. Specifically, there are plans to integrate data from medical devices and enhance “situational awareness” algorithms that will consider the specifics of space medicine, including microgravity conditions.
“NASA views CMO-DA as a component of a strategy for Earth-independent medical assistance, which becomes critically important as space expeditions extend.”
Whether this tool will be used for terrestrial medical needs has not yet been clarified by Google. Meanwhile, developers believe that if it proves successful in orbit, such technology could transform healthcare approaches on Earth, improving the quality and accessibility of medical assistance in remote or isolated locations.
It is worth noting that it was previously reported that Google is also working on an innovative project to create AI for decoding dolphin language using Pixel smartphones.