Employees of the global aerospace corporations SpaceX visited the Hyundai Glovis(086280) car carrier to directly check the operational status of the low-Earth orbit satellite communication service "Starlink."
Hyundai Glovis said on the 19th that the vice president of SpaceX's enterprise division and others visited the car carrier Glovis Stella.
The SpaceX delegation boarded the Glovis Stella at Gwangyang Port in South Jeolla and examined the Starlink equipment and the ship's onboard communication environment. They then met with the crew to hear opinions on communication quality during ocean voyages, the work-related data transmission and reception environment, and the convenience of video calls and online content use.
The crew conveyed that the convenience of using services such as long-distance communication quality—which had been constrained under existing maritime communication environments—and video calls and video streaming had greatly improved.
Hyundai Glovis has been pushing to introduce Starlink for 47 self-owned vessels, including car carriers and bulk carriers, since January this year, and has completed installation on 45 vessels so far. Through this, it has built a data transmission environment superior to existing satellite communication and is strengthening a real-time information-sharing system between ships and onshore organizations.
A high-speed, low-latency communication environment based on low-Earth orbit satellite communication supports rapid information sharing and response with onshore in emergencies such as worsening weather, ship equipment failures, and crew health issues. It is also used to provide remote technical support through real-time sharing of operation and maintenance data and to improve ship operation efficiency.
Hyundai Glovis sees high-speed, high-capacity communication infrastructure as a key foundation for expanding the application of smart shipping technologies such as AI-based predictive maintenance, ship safety management, and operational efficiency. Communication infrastructure is also essential to expanding digital welfare, including communication among crew members' families and online education.
A Hyundai Glovis official said, "Because digital communication infrastructure is a core foundation that determines future maritime competitiveness, we will actively reflect on-site feedback to continuously advance communication infrastructure and AI- and data-based smart shipping systems, and provide customers with safer and more efficient maritime services."