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

A Factory in a Container, Operating at Sea

When the USS Essex sailed toward Hawaii for RIMPAC 2026, it carried more than aircraft and crew. Packed into two expandable 20-foot ISO containers sat Firestorm Labs' xCell platform: a fully mobile polymer 3D printing and assembly line. Over a two-week transit marked by 12-foot waves, the system produced 12 flight-ready FPV drones and more than 1,000 replacement parts without leaving the deck.

This was the first maritime deployment of xCell. Firestorm Labs designed the system around industrial HP Multi Jet Fusion polymer printers paired with semi-automated assembly stations. Everything fits in a footprint small enough to load onto a ship, yet large enough to act as a distributed factory when resupply runs are not an option.

Twelve Squall Drones, Ready to Fly

The headline output was a dozen Squall FPV quadcopters. These are not hobbyist craft. Each Squall carries a 5.5-pound payload, cruises at up to 80 mph, and stays aloft for 42 minutes with a range of 20 miles. The NDAA-compliant design is intended for U.S. forces, and the Essex crew printed and assembled these drones while underway.

When the ship arrived at RIMPAC, those same Squalls were used as adversary aircraft in a counter-UAS exercise. That sequence, from raw filament to active flight in a military drill, is what makes the deployment noteworthy. It is not a prototype story anymore.

Parts Apache Helicopters Actually Needed

The drones got the headlines, but the day-to-day value was in the spares. Crew-requested prints included rotor droop-stops for Apache helicopters, components designed to prevent $500,000 in rotor damage during at-sea operations. Also printed: a custom vacuum-hose coupling needed for life preserver testing, electrical fitting covers, deck tie-down gauge brackets, and a long tail of small items that would otherwise have required a supply flight or a stop at port.

Firestorm Labs put it plainly on social media: every part printed on deck is one that does not need to be flown or shipped across contested waters. Repairs that once meant days or weeks waiting on resupply can now happen in hours, on station.

Why This Matters

The 3D printing industry has talked about mobile factories for years. Most demonstrations happen on land, in controlled warehouses, with stable power and flat floors. The xCell deployment on the Essex removes those guardrails. Additive manufacturing in a rolling, wet environment, under actual operational conditions, is a different test than a lab build.

The US Navy has been testing 3D-printed parts on ships and submarines for some time. What changes here is scale: 1,000-plus parts in a single transit, plus assembled drones, from a containerized system that can move with the fleet. If Firestorm Labs and the Navy continue this program, the next question is whether xCell or something like it becomes standard equipment on amphibious ships, logistics vessels, or forward-deployed groups.