Google and NASA are working together to create an intelligent robot doctor that will be powered by artificial intelligence and help astronauts on their future expeditions to the Moon and Mars. The technology will assist with medical emergencies and general tasks around the space station.

The robot doctor could prove to be an invaluable addition to future deep space exploration. The delay in communication between the Earth and astronauts on Mars could be up to 44 minutes, so having an AI robot will help during emergencies.

How Will The AI Robot Doctor Help Astronauts?

Astronauts will be able to use the AI robot to help them with medical emergencies and everyday tasks. The robot will be able to handle equipment, manage supplies, organise tools and assist with basic medical tasks.

For example, if an astronaut is suffering from bad back pain they could have kidney stones. The robot can be asked to get the ultrasound machine ready for them. This allows the medical officer to focus on analysing the results.

The robot will also be used to monitor basic health, taking vitals and getting medical equipment ready.

Google and NASA Collaboration

This project involves Google Public Sector, NASA’s Human Research Program, the Johnson Space Centre Robotics Team and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).

The new robot follows on from the previous project which was known as the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA). Google and NASA started testing this AI robot in 2025.

The previous robot was designed to give astronauts advice on medical issues when they were isolated. However, with the new project there is now a physical robot to help out.

AI Robot Has An 85% Success Rate

• In the early stages of testing, the robot had an 85% success rate at finding and moving the medical bag.
• The robot uses the open source Pi0 model from Physical Intelligence. It uses Google Cloud to train the robot.
• They also used their DeepMind MuJoCo physics simulator to test how the robot would move.
• The base AI model with 4 billion parameters was trained using Google Cloud G4 computing instances. This only took around 2.5 hours. Researchers are also trying to make sure that it can run on small low power computers. This means that they won’t need constant communication with earth.
• The 85% success rate is from the initial testing of the robot handling equipment. It doesn’t mean that the robot can diagnose or treat astronauts on its own.

Why Does NASA Need AI Medical Robots On Mars?

• One of the biggest issues that astronauts face are medical emergencies. When going to Mars, astronauts can suffer from up to 44 minute delays in communication.
• It can be hard for astronauts to get quick advice from doctors.
• Having an AI medical assistant could help overcome this issue. It can help astronauts with medical equipment.
• It can also take away some of the physical workload from astronauts. This means they can spend more time focusing on research.

Is The AI Robot Replacing Doctors?

Google have made clear that this robot will be an assistant.

It will be operated by the astronauts, especially the medical officer. The robot could help gather health data, set up diagnostic equipment and physically help. However, decisions will be made by humans.

Researchers are still testing how well the robot can work. They want to make sure it can work in difficult conditions. In the long term they want to create fully autonomous medical interventions.

Google’s AI Technology Could Revolutionise Space Exploration

• This collaboration between Google and NASA is an important step in using AI and robots within space exploration.
• With NASA focusing on their Artemis programme, having AI medical assistants can help astronauts work safely for longer periods of time.
• In the future they hope to create an assistant that can understand simple voice commands and complete various tasks whilst being monitored by astronauts.
• Whilst this is still in the experimental phase, it could be very useful for future missions to the moon, running a lunar base and exploring mars.