Google is working with NASA on a robot meant to support astronauts on long deep-space missions, where communication with Earth carries lengthy delays. Jim Kelly, Google's public sector vice president, announced it in a blog post published on Tuesday.
The project grows out of the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA), an AI decision-support system Google has been developing with NASA since last year. It runs locally on onboard hardware and is already being tested on Earth-based copies of the computers used aboard the International Space Station. Local operation is needed because a round trip to Mars can take up to 44 minutes, which rules out real-time medical consultation.
The robot would assist the crew medical officer rather than replace them. Beyond medical tasks, it would handle cargo, logistics and equipment, and take on routine maintenance when it is not needed at the bedside. Kelly gave an example: an astronaut with severe back pain possibly caused by a kidney stone could see the robot prepare an ultrasound machine while the officer reads the scan and decides on treatment. The goal is to direct it with simple voice commands, always under the crew's direct supervision.
The project is still at the proof-of-concept stage. Google tested the robot's movements with DeepMind's MuJoCo physics simulator and, in early laboratory trials, the system located and moved a medical bag with an 85 percent success rate. A fully integrated, space-ready robot has not been confirmed. JPL is also adapting satellite tracking tools to help the robot navigate.
Google referred questions to NASA, which declined to give specifics, saying only that it is working on a range of AI projects for its missions and assessing them with partners.
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