Written By: Brandi Vincent

The capabilities were powered by SpaceX’s Starlink terminals, DefenseScoop confirmed.

Navy Capt. Chris “Chowdah” Hill is unapologetically bullish about elevating crew morale across every level of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier he commands, which recently returned from an extended and high-stress combat deployment in the Red Sea. 

Providing sailors with secure access to internet connectivity — explicitly for personal use — proved to be a key morale-builder during the nine months that “the Ike” was deployed, according to Hill, where they frequently faced a barrage of threats from the Iran-backed Houthis and others.

“We had WiFi for the group — not huge bandwidth, by any means. But it really helped people connect with their external support network in ways that we’ve never seen before,” he said at the Military Reporters and Editors Conference on Friday. 

“There’s obviously got these security concerns about adding WiFi. A couple of the ships have tried a prototype of this. We went through our type command that provides the funding for this. It’s not a program of record by any means, but the system has some built-in protocol, so it can be turned on immediately. And it can be monitored and that sort of thing for [operational security or OPSEC] purposes,” he noted.