Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, NASA reveal mission plans for blasting city-killing asteroids away from Earth
Rock-a-bye, baby.
With scientists warning that Earth could be susceptible to thousands of undetected asteroids, Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is developing a planetary defense program that could help protect us against a rock-alypse.
There are reportedly 15,000 undetected city-killer asteroids hovering within Earth’s proximity. Paopano – stock.adobe.com
Planned in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the Near-Earth Objects (NEO) Hunter mission concept would trial “multiple asteroid-deflection techniques,” per an X post by the firm.
They would accomplish this using Blue Ring, the under-development spacecraft platform that debuted aboard the maiden flight of the firm’s 300-foot New Glenn rocket in early 2025.
Asteroids could be deflected using a beam or via ramming with a spacecraft. Matthieu – stock.adobe.com
This veritable Swiss Army Knife of space infrastructure would be capable of hosting, refueling and transporting spacecraft for missions for the ambitious mission.
First, small satellites would be dispatched to conduct reconnaissance of any potentially Earth-bound projectiles, analyzing stats such as mass, so space defense experts can decide how to best handle the threat, Futurism reported.
As for elimination, Blue Origin proposed deflecting the object using a concentrated ray of particles, dubbed ion beam-deflecting or “robust kinetic disruption,” in which they attempt to ram the target off course.
With the latter, they appeared to be taking a leaf from the 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) experiment, in which NASA flew a spacecraft into the mini moon Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour.
While this ostensibly proved that asteroids could be deflected, it also caused the rock to eject some massive boulders that had the potential to hurtle toward Earth like intergalactic shrapnel, a July 2025 study found.
CEO Jeff Bezos speaks onstage at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, last month. AFP via Getty Images
It’s unclear how Blue Origin would account for those potential side effects; however, developing ironclad planetary defense systems could prove vital, given the up to 15,000 undetected asteroids orbiting close to home.
During the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) last month, NASA planetary defense officer Kelly warned that the space rocks are particularly insidious because they’re small enough to avoid detection but large enough to take out a city.
According to Fast, there are around 25,000 of these NEOs passing within our planet’s vicinity — and we only know the location of around 40%.
NASA is currently developing its Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission, the first-ever space telescope specifically designed to detect potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, which it tracks using infrared sensors that can pick up objects that don’t reflect much visible light.
We may have to develop a rock-stopping system sooner than we’d hoped.
Scientists have warned that the infamous city-killer asteroid YR4 — which has been on our radar since 2024 — has a 4% chance of crashing into the moon within six years.
To prevent that outcome, space defense experts have proposed nuking it like something out of the sci-fi thriller “Armageddon.”
