SPEE3D 3D-Printed Metal Parts at Sea Aboard a Canadian Navy Ship at RIMPAC 2026

What Happened at RIMPAC 2026

The 2026 edition of Rim of the Pacific included more than 50 advanced manufacturing technologies deployed across the exercise. SPEE3D's was one of the more unusual setups. The Australian company sent its Expeditionary Manufacturing Unit (EMU) to the Hawaiian Islands, where it worked alongside the Army Research Laboratory, the Tennessee Army National Guard, and the University of Tennessee's Defense Development and Applied Research Center (DARC).

The headline detail: SPEE3D printed metal parts aboard the MV Asterix, a Royal Canadian Navy supply ship. This was the first time SPEE3D's cold spray systems operated at sea on an operational vessel. Most RIMPAC manufacturing demonstrations have run from shore facilities or from the USS Essex. Putting the equipment on a non-US allied vessel changes the logistics picture considerably.

How Many Parts Were Printed

SPEE3D and its partners produced 32 parts total during RIMPAC 2026. Twenty-four came from Knoxville Armory's reachback capability, which lets engineers send digital requests to a remote manufacturing node and receive finished parts back. The remaining eight were printed directly aboard the MV Asterix.

The parts included aluminium bronze hatch knobs and cover boxes. All but three of the 32 parts went on to final post-processing, which is a notable completion rate for an exercise environment. The EMU includes a CNC mill alongside the cold spray printer, so parts could be machined to tolerance on-site rather than shipped back to a mainland facility.

Why Cold Spray Matters for Naval Logistics

Cold spray additive manufacturing works very differently from the melt-based processes most people associate with 3D printing. The machine accelerates metal powder to supersonic speeds and bonds it to a substrate without melting. That means no heat-affected zone, no warping from thermal cycling, and the ability to print on existing metal parts rather than starting from scratch on a build plate.

For a navy supply ship operating between San Diego and Hawaii, that matters. A broken hatch knob or bracket does not need a full supply chain to replace. The digital file travels instead of the physical part. SPEE3D's reachback model means the ship's crew requests a part, a stateside node prints it, and the finished component ships back to the vessel. The eight at-sea prints on the MV Asterix represent the on-node portion of that workflow.

What This Signals About Future Manufacturing

The Pentagon framed RIMPAC 2026 as the largest advanced manufacturing demonstration in Department of Defense history. The Naval Postgraduate School's CAMRE program deployed more than 50 advanced manufacturing technologies across the exercise, integrating them through JAMS, a digital command-and-control platform that routes manufacturing requests across distributed nodes.

SPEE3D's participation fits a pattern: the company has now taken part in multiple RIMPAC cycles, each time expanding the operational envelope. The move from shore-based printing to at-sea printing on a foreign-flagged vessel is a meaningful step. It tests not just the printer hardware but the communications, logistics, and quality-control chains that make distributed manufacturing reliable under operational conditions.

The results from RIMPAC 2026 suggest those chains held. An 89 percent post-processing completion rate in a maritime environment is a credible data point for anyone arguing that cold spray AM belongs in the military logistics toolkit.