DISHONORABLE SERVICE Was Hunter Biden discharged from the military for cocaine?

JOE Biden's son Hunter was discharged from the military in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.

He has recently come under scrutiny after his laptop hard drive, taken apart by a repair shop owner, revealed compromising images, videos and emails from the former Vice President's kin.

President Trump has repeatedly alleged corruption on Hunter's part during his time at the firm, though has offered no evidence of wrongdoing.

Hunter was reportedly seen “smoking crack during a sex act” in a video taken from his hard drive, along with emails that allegedly showed he introduced a Ukraine exec to his dad when Joe was Vice President.

A spokesperson for Joe Biden denied any such meeting in a statement.

The laptop in question was taken apart and an external hard drive was then turned over to the FBI in December.

It has been reported a computer repair shop owner in Biden's home state of Delaware notified federal investigators of what he found.

Recently, a lawyer for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he has obtained a hard drive containing around 40,000 emails and more images of Hunter in "very compromising positions."

Was Hunter Biden discharged from the military for cocaine?

Hunter was discharged from the military after testing positive for cocaine in 2014.

He joined the US navy reserve as an ensign in 2012 and failed the test in June 2013 – but was not kicked out until February the following year.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12939656/hunter-biden-military-discharge-cocaine-laptop-controversy/

Army readies charging port for autonomous drone swarms

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – A swarm of hundreds of unmanned air vehicles will soon descend on unmanned ground vehicles to autonomously recharge, thanks to U.S. Army-funded research now underway at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory awarded the University of Illinois Chicago a four-year, $8 million cooperative agreement in August to develop foundational science in two critical propulsion and power technology areas for powering future families of unmanned aircraft systems, or UASs.

This collaborative program will help small battery-powered drones autonomously return from military missions to unmanned ground vehicles for recharging. The university is developing algorithms to enable route planning for multiple teams of small unmanned air and ground vehicles.

Dr. Mike Kweon, program manager for the laboratory's Versatile Tactical Power and Propulsion Essential Research Program, said the research on route planning is critical to the Army, which needs intelligent, small UASs that can find optimal routes during a military mission to autonomously return to unmanned ground vehicles, known as UGVs, for recharging. This will optimize the operational range extension and time on mission.

"Imagine in the future, the Army deploying a swarm of hundreds or thousands of unmanned aerial systems," Kweon said. "Each of these systems has only roughly 26 minutes with the current battery technologies to conduct a flight mission and return to their home before they lose battery power, which means all of them could conceivably return at the same time to have their batteries replaced."

This future concept is based on the reality of today's technology, Kweon said.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-10-15/sweden-boosts-military-spending-expands-draft-amid-russia-tensions

Orbital Sidekick wins $16 million U.S. Air Force contract

SAN FRANCISCO – Orbital Sidekick is speeding up its campaign to build and launch a constellation of six hyperspectral imaging satellites thanks to a $16 million U.S. government contract announced Oct. 15.

The government funding, which Orbital Sidekick matched with private investment, comes from the U.S. Air Force commercial investment group AFVentures’s Strategic Financing program with support from the U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, according to the news release.

With the government and private funding, Orbital Sidekick is “really gunning for rapid commercialization of our commercial product line,” Daniel Katz, Orbital Sidekick CEO and co-founder, told SpaceNews.

The Air Force is helping to accelerate the rollout of Orbital Sidekick’s constellation “because they understand there is commercial viability to what we are doing,” Katz said. “The faster we can build and launch and operate these satellites, the faster we can supply the intelligence community with hyperspectral data.”

Orbital Sidekick sent its first hyperspectral sensor, a technology demonstration, to the International Space Station in 2018. There, it gathered imagery from its perch on the NanoRacks External Platform.

Orbital Sidekick is preparing to launch its second hyperspectral sensor in December on a Loft Orbital satellite scheduled to travel on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare flight.

Orbital Sidekick calls its second mission and sensor Aurora. The Aurora sensor is designed to gather imagery in a much wider spectral range than its predecessor. Orbital Sidekick’s first sensor observed imagery in visible to near infrared spectral bands, while Aurora gathers imagery from visible to shortwave infrared bands.

https://spacenews.com/orbital-sidekick-air-force-contract/

The U.S. Air Force Is Getting Ready To Build a New Stealth Fighter

The Air Force’s announcement was quite the surprise—as it wasn’t expected that the NGAD program was this far along, but rather was in the early-phase technology development stage.

Last week, the Congressional Research Service released an In Focus report on the United States Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. The report was prepared following the announcement by Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, that the Air Force had flown a full-scale flight demonstrator as part of the program to develop a family of connected air warfare systems.

The Air Force’s announcement was quite the surprise—as it wasn’t expected that the NGAD program was this far along, but rather was in the early-phase technology development stage. It wasn’t expected that the project would yield actual hardware in the near future as it was unusually fast to design and build a new military aircraft from the ground up.

However, the Department of Defense (DoD had expressed interest in building a new “X-plane” prototype going back to 2014, and it isn’t clear if this led to the NGAD demonstrator. As noted in the Congressional Research Service’s In Focus report,

“it is notable that the aircraft was described as a ‘full-scale flight demonstrator,’ not a ‘prototype.’ The former phrase is used to describe an aircraft that is showing off some form of technology and is different from a ‘prototype,’ which indicated a more production-representative system.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-air-force-getting-ready-build-new-stealth-fighter-170684

Sweden Boosts Military Spending, Expands Draft Amid Russia Tensions

STOCKHOLM (REUTERS) - Sweden will boost military spending by around 40% over the next five years and double the numbers conscripted into the armed forces as it looks to beef up its defence amid growing tensions with Russia, the government said on Thursday.

Sweden, which is not a member of NATO but enjoys close ties with the bloc, ran down its military after the end of the Cold War to save money.

"We have a situation where the Russian side is willing to use military means to achieve political goals," Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist told reporters. "Based on that, we have a new geo-political security situation to deal with."

Hultqvist said the new proposals would mean an increase in the military budget of 27.5 billion Swedish crowns ($3.10 billion) by 2025.

Increased Russian activity in the Baltic Sea region has pushed Sweden into a hasty programme of rearmament, including the purchase of Patriot missiles from the United States.

Last month, Sweden protested to Moscow after two warships entered its territorial waters without permission and has repeatedly complained about Russian military planes flying too close to its own aircraft and violating Swedish airspace.

The government said the military budget would be increased successively between 2021 and 2025, and would fund an expansion of military personnel to around 90,000 from the current 60,000, including a new mechanised brigade with updated artillery.

The navy will get an extra submarine, increasing the number to five, and the corvette fleet will be updated, while both the army and air force will get upgraded weapons systems.

In addition, the draft will be expanded to 8,000 a year by 2025, up from 4,000 in 2019. Sweden ended conscription in 2010, but reintroduced compulsory military service for a limited number of men and women in 2017.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-10-15/sweden-boosts-military-spending-expands-draft-amid-russia-tensions