SPEE3D Prints Metal Parts at Sea During RIMPAC 2026

For the first time, a cold spray metal 3D printing system operated at sea during RIMPAC 2026, producing replacement parts aboard the Royal Canadian Navy supply vessel MV Asterix. The exercise, which ran through July 31 around Hawaii, brought together 40 surface ships, five submarines, 140 aircraft, and more than 25,000 personnel from 26 allied and partner nations.

What actually got printed

SPEE3D and its partners produced 32 metal parts during the exercise. Twenty-four came through a reachback link to the Knoxville Armory in Tennessee, while the remaining eight were printed directly on the MV Asterix. Twenty-nine of those parts completed the full manufacturing cycle, including heat treatment and machining. The EMU combines SPEE3D's containerized XSPEE3D printer with a SPEE3Dcell post-processing unit, so parts move from powder to finished component without leaving the ship.

Why cold spray matters at sea

Conventional metal 3D printing melts material with heat. SPEE3D's Cold Spray Manufacturing accelerates metal powder to supersonic velocities and deposits it onto a substrate, building dense metal parts without melting. The system runs on an open deck, even in heavy seas. That matters for naval logistics: ships operating across the Indo-Pacific can spend weeks or months away from resupply ports. Producing a replacement hatch knob or clamp on board beats waiting two months for a quote from the normal supply chain.

The team behind the demo

The at-sea demonstration was led by the Naval Postgraduate School's Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education, working with the Army Research Laboratory, the Tennessee Army National Guard, and the University of Tennessee's Defense Development and Applied Research Center. The Army National Guard and DARC team had already tested a similar drone-delivered part replacement concept during an earlier live-fire exercise. At RIMPAC, that concept moved from land to a maritime environment.

What the numbers show

The distributed manufacturing network deployed more than 50 advanced manufacturing technologies at RIMPAC 2026. Over two weeks, the system received 2,741 part requests. About 75 different parts made it through production. The Pentagon has framed RIMPAC as its largest-ever advanced manufacturing demonstration, and the demand numbers back that claim. Not every request was printable: batteries, circuit boards, and some machined titanium parts failed final inspection after installation. But the eight at-sea prints on the Asterix all cleared post-processing.

What comes next

SPEE3D's CEO noted the system operated on an open deck in heavy seas. That is a strong validation of ruggedization, but it is still a pilot. The next step is proving the workflow scales beyond a single vessel and a handful of parts. If the Navy wants to outfit more ships with expeditionary manufacturing, it needs to shrink the argon footprint, automate the AI tool-selection step, and harden the reachback network. For now, eight printed parts at sea is a concrete proof point that the concept works.