Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin wants to defend Earth against dangerous asteroids. Here's how

Blue Origin is teaming up with NASA to thwart asteroids that may be on collision courses with Earth.

Jeff Bezos' company has partnered with researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology to study how to integrate Earth defense capabilities into its existing Blue Ring spacecraft platform. The concept is called the Near Earth Objects (NEO) Hunter mission, and it relies on multiple technologies to scan, deflect and divert incoming asteroids away from possible impacts with Earth.

It's the latest application for Blue Ring, Blue Origin's modular satellite bus built to support up to 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of mission payloads distributed between as many as 13 different connection ports. Blue Ring is designed to operate anywhere from low Earth and geostationary orbits to cislunar space, Mars and other deep-space destinations.