In April 2025, the four crew members of SpaceX's Fram2 mission made history by taking the first-ever medical X-rays in low Earth orbit. The results, published in the journal Radiology in July 2026, confirm that portable X-ray technology can produce diagnostic-quality images in microgravity — a capability that had eluded space medicine for more than six decades.
Until now, ultrasound was the only practical imaging tool available to astronauts in orbit. While versatile, ultrasound requires significant training to operate and interpret. X-ray imaging, by contrast, is faster, more intuitive, and widely used in terrestrial medicine. But taking an X-ray in space presents unique challenges: the equipment must be compact and battery-powered, the patient and detector must stay perfectly still in a floating environment, and any movement during exposure can blur the image.
The breakthrough was made possible by two developments. First, X-ray technology has shrunk dramatically in recent years, producing handheld, wireless devices that operate on batteries. Second, the research team led by Dr. Sheyna Gifford of the Mayo Clinic realized that taking the image extremely fast — in a fraction of a second — could overcome the problem of motion blur caused by microgravity. After proving the concept worked during parabolic flights in 2022, the team secured a spot aboard Fram2, a private polar orbital mission named after the ship that carried polar explorers Nansen and Amundsen.
The Fram2 crew received just four hours of training before launch. Once in orbit, they captured X-ray images of their hands, forearms, chests, abdomens, and pelvises. Radiologists on Earth independently evaluated the scans and found them all of diagnostic quality. Hands and arms were easiest to image clearly because they could be held still; chest and abdomen images were slightly lower in quality but still usable for clinical assessment.
Beyond medical diagnostics, the portable X-ray system has another potential use: non-destructive testing of spacecraft equipment. The team demonstrated this by imaging a smartwatch in orbit, showing that the same device could inspect cables, welds, and structural components for hidden damage during long missions to the Moon and Mars.
Knowledge takeaway: The Fram2 mission proved that portable X-ray devices can capture diagnostic-quality medical images in microgravity after just four hours of crew training; the key innovation is taking exposures in a fraction of a second to overcome motion blur; the same technology can be used for inspecting spacecraft hardware, making it a dual-purpose tool for future deep-space exploration.