Blue Origin plans to defend Earth from dangerous asteroids.

Blue Origin and researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech are studying the NEO Hunter concept, which would use the Blue Ring spacecraft with cubesats, an ion beam, and a possible kinetic impact phase to detect, characterize and alter potentially hazardous asteroids.

Blue Origin is studying a mission concept called NEO Hunter to help detect and alter the paths of potentially hazardous asteroids. The company says it is working with researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology to explore how to adapt the Blue Ring spacecraft platform for planetary defense. Blue Ring is a modular satellite bus designed to carry multiple payloads and to operate from low Earth orbit to cislunar and deep-space destinations. The concept relies on a mix of reconnaissance and intervention techniques to scan, characterize and, if necessary, change an object's trajectory. Key details: - The NEO Hunter concept is being studied in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology as an adaptation of Blue Ring for planetary defense. - The mission would deploy groups of cubesats across two phases to rendezvous with and characterize a potential threatening object, measuring properties such as composition, mass and density. - One proposed technique is an ion beam emitter that would direct a stream of charged particles at an asteroid to slowly alter its orbit, drawing on principles similar to ion propulsion. - If an object is too large or too fast for the ion beam to be effective, the plan includes a “Robust Kinetic Disruption” phase in which the Blue Ring vehicle would intercept and impact the object at high velocity, and a smaller satellite called the "Slamcam" would be released to document the collision. - Blue Ring is designed to support up to about 4,000 kilograms of payload across multiple connection ports, and the platform has been offered for other uses such as an orbital sensor flight in partnership with Scout Space. Summary: The concept would add a commercial satellite platform to existing planetary defense approaches and builds on techniques demonstrated by past missions such as NASA's DART. Undetermined at this time.