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Active TRL 3 (started at 3, targeting 7)
The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Project is a NASA initiative to enable safe, autonomous medical care for crews on future Lunar Base, Mars transit, and Mars surface missions, where communication delays and blackouts will preclude real-time guidance from Earth. Under these conditions, astronauts must independently detect, diagnose, and treat medical events, even when no physician is onboard and crew medical training time is limited. This project integrates clinical, human factors, and software engineering expertise into a unified CDS strategy. Core objectives include surveying commercial and government CDS tools, defining requirements for spaceflight-relevant functions, and formulating a technology development plan for tailored or internally developed solutions that can operate reliably with constrained computing resources and intermittent connectivity. The CDS capability will be validated through progressive ground testing and eventual flight demonstration, with tight integration with the Crew Exploration Health Portal (CEHP) and the Crew Health and Performance Integrated Data System Platform (CHP‑IDSP) to capture clinical data, support asynchronous consultation with flight surgeons, and sustain earth‑independent medical operations.
Today’s current low earth orbit paradigm of the International Space Station (ISS)’s medical care depends on real-time communication with ground flight surgeons and a large support team. This model will not be viable for Mars missions with up to 45‑minute round‑trip communication delays, communication blackouts, and limited to no evacuation and resupplies. A spaceflight CDS tool will help crew members with varying levels of medical training initiate timely, evidence-informed diagnosis and treatment during the critical first 1–2 hours of care, rather than waiting for delayed ground input. By guiding patient histories, vital signs collection, focused physical examinations, selection of feasible diagnostics, and safe initial therapies, the CDS is expected to improve medical outcomes, reduce preventable errors, and lower overall risk to crew health and performance. Preliminary analyses indicate such a system can effectively augment crew cognitive capability and scope of practice, decreasing projected mission medical risk for long-duration deep space expeditions.
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