NASA, in collaboration with Google, is developing a new medical assistant powered by artificial intelligence known as the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA). This system is designed for autonomous diagnosis and treatment of symptoms in space when communication with Earth may be limited or when no doctor is available onboard.
According to PCMag,
CMO-DA operates within Google Cloud's Vertex AI environment and supports multimodal interaction including voice, text, and images. NASA retains ownership of the assistant's source code and is actively involved in model tuning. The platform provides access to models from both Google and third-party developers.
The system has already been tested in three different 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 encompasses 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 for a gradual shift towards autonomous medicine in space. If successfully validated in orbit, the technology could be adapted for use on Earth, particularly in isolated regions or under conditions of limited access to medical services.
Additionally, it is worth noting that NASA recently shared how it has maintained the operation of the Curiosity rover for 13 years.
