For the first time in history, someone took an X-ray while floating in orbit around Earth. The image: a simple picture of a hand. But this tiny photograph could change everything about how we keep astronauts healthy in space. A team of crew members aboard the Fram2 mission captured the first diagnostic X-rays ever taken during an orbital flight, and the results, published in the journal Radiology, mark a turning point for human spaceflight. Before this, astronauts had only one tool for looking inside the body in space: ultrasound, which uses sound waves to create images. For more than 40 years, that was the only option. But ultrasound requires a lot of training to use correctly and depends on a medium to transmit sound waves. Neither of those things is easy to come by when you're floating 425 kilometers above Earth. "It's been a dream for aerospace medicine to have more than one imaging modality for diagnosing illnesses and injuries in space," said Dr. Sheyna Gifford, the lead researcher and an assistant professor of aerospace medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "X-rays are fast, easy and diagnostically valuable." The team didn't start in orbit, though. In 2022, Gifford's group tested a portable X-ray machine on a parabolic flight, which creates short periods of weightlessness, and successfully imaged a hand in microgravity. Buoyed by that success, they partnered with SpaceX to try the technology on the Fram2 mission, a 3.5-day polar orbital flight that launched on March 31, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Three crew members received just four hours of training on the portable radiography system before liftoff. That minimal preparation didn't stop them from capturing detailed images of hands, forearms, abdomens, pelvises, and chests both before and during the flight. Independent radiologists confirmed the images were clear enough to be useful for diagnosis. The spacecraft entered a 90-degree polar orbit at 425 to 450 kilometers above sea level, circled Earth for three days and 14 hours, and returned safely on April 4. The X-ray machine did take some cosmetic damage during landing and recovery, but the internal components and the machine's ability to produce X-rays remained intact. Traditional X-ray machines are bulky, blast out a lot of radiation, and tend to produce blurry images when anything moves. In space, where everything is constantly drifting, that seemed like an impossible problem. But portable X-ray machines are already used at the Kentucky Derby, on the sidelines of the Super Bowl, and in remote areas around the world because they run on solar power and can be operated by people with no medical background. Gifford believes those same qualities make them viable in space. The implications stretch beyond just treating sick astronauts. A spaceflight-ready X-ray system could be used to inspect electronics, spacesuits, and other equipment without having to take them apart. "For sustained human presence in space, X-rays are critical not just for crew members but also for other mission components," Gifford said. As humans prepare to spend longer stretches away from Earth, the ability to peer inside a bone, a lung, or a spacecraft circuit with equal ease may become one of the most important tools we have.