Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin just unveiled plans to shoot dangerous asteroids with an ion cannon or ram them out of orbit entirely

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has just shared its asteroid-deflection plans, and they sound like something from a science-fiction movie. 

Blue Origin is still a fairly new name in the space technology industry, but it’s got big ambitions. 

This week, it shared plans for its ‘Near-Earth Objects (NEO) Hunter mission concept’, which was developed in collaboration with NASA. 

The plans will help to ‘protect Earth from potential threats’, and could see asteroids blasted with ion cannons or whacked out of orbit, if they come too close. 

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The plans could see Blue Origin blasting asteroids with ion cannons

A Near-Earth Object, or NEO, is the name given to an asteroid or comet that has an orbit that brings it within about 121 million miles of the Sun, meaning that it can pass within about 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. 

There are thousands of known NEOs, and NASA has confirmed that none of them ‘poses a significant risk of impact with Earth over the next 100 years’. 

However, if an asteroid ever should find itself on course for a collision with Earth, the impact could be devastating – so NASA has plans in place to keep us safe. 

In September 2022, NASA carried out its DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which saw the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos slammed into as a test of planetary defense. 

Now Blue Origin has announced new plans after joining forces with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to work on the Near-Earth Objects (NEO) Hunter mission concept. 

The idea is to test ‘multiple asteroid-deflection techniques, including ion-beam deflection and robust direct kinetic impact, helping protect Earth from potential threats’.

The company has suggested that it could use a concentrated beam of particles to change an NEO’s orbit. 

Or it could take the lead from the DART missions and simply whack into it at high speed, but that can come with some unexpected consequences.

The mission will use the Blue Ring spacecraft

Blue Origin will be hoping to use its in-development Blue Ring spacecraft platform for the tests. 

Blue Ring is ‘an all-in-one, high-powered hybrid solar electric and chemical propelled spacecraft that can carry payloads of up to 8,800lbs and can be deployed anywhere from low Earth orbits to Mars and other deep space destinations.’

“This is another example of how commercial platforms like Blue Ring can conduct low-cost, high-priority science, exploration, and planetary defense missions,” Blue Origin said in its latest update. 

As yet, there’s no official date when Blue Origin plans to put its asteroid blasting mission into action, but the Blue Ring has recently been going through testing at NASA.

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