US Navy Prints Combat-Ready Drones at Sea During RIMPAC Exercise

The US Navy just ran a two-week experiment in self-sufficiency at sea, and the results are hard to ignore. During the transit to RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii, the USS Essex carried a containerized 3D printing factory that produced a dozen flight-ready drones plus more than 1,000 spare parts while the ship pitched through 12-foot waves.

This was the first ocean test of Firestorm Labs' xCell platform. The system fits inside two 20-foot ISO containers or a single 40-foot container. Inside, industrial HP Multi Jet Fusion polymer printers run alongside semi-automated assembly stations. No dock required.

The headline output was 12 Squall FPV drones. Each one hits 80 mph, stays aloft for 42 minutes, and carries a 5.5-pound payload. The Navy flew these same drones as adversary aircraft in a counter-UAS exercise once the Essex reached Hawaii. The drones are NDAA-compliant and built for US forces.

But drones are only part of the story. The crew printed vital spares for Apache helicopters, including rotor droop-stops that prevent half-million-dollar rotor damage during at-sea operations. They also made a custom vacuum-hose coupling for life preserver testing, along with brackets for Starlink antennas, covers for electrical fittings, and deck tie-down gauges.

The practical impact is straightforward. Every part printed on deck is one less thing that needs to be flown or shipped across contested waters. Firestorm Labs puts it plainly: repairs that once meant days or weeks waiting on resupply can now happen in hours, on station. That matters for a carrier group operating far from home ports.

This deployment signals where military logistics is heading. Additive manufacturing at scale removes the supply chain as a vulnerability. The Navy is not just testing printers here. It is testing whether a warship can be its own spare-parts store. The answer from the Essex looks like yes.