For six weeks this summer, the amphibious assault ship USS Essex operated as something the U.S. Navy has talked about for a decade but rarely deployed at scale: a floating factory. During RIMPAC 2026 — the 30th Rim of the Pacific exercise, running June 24 to July 31 around Hawaii — the Navy conducted what it calls the largest advanced-manufacturing demonstration in Department of Defense history, producing over 1,000 parts while at sea.

What Actually Happened at RIMPAC 2026

RIMPAC 2026 drew roughly 35 nations, 40 surface ships, five submarines, 140 aircraft, and over 25,000 personnel. What made this year different was the manufacturing itself. The advanced-manufacturing effort was led by the Naval Postgraduate School’s Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education (CAMRE), working through the partnership intermediary FLEETWERX under the Navy’s Fleet Experimentation Program.

Three distinct systems worked in concert aboard and alongside USS Essex:

Firestorm Labs xCell — The 1,000-Part Milestone

The headline number — more than 1,000 parts produced while underway — belongs to Firestorm Labs’ containerized xCell platform, a polymer 3D-printing system. These parts served the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Army, and the system operated reliably even in seas up to 12 feet. According to field operations manager Duane Blank, printing dimensionally acceptable parts on a moving deck in rough seas was the operationally significant milestone.

Phillips Federal — Metal Hybrid Manufacturing

Separately, Phillips Federal deployed a containerized hybrid manufacturing cell pairing a Haas TM-1P CNC mill with a Meltio Blue wire-laser metal deposition system. This combination allows both additive and subtractive work in a single container: building up metal features, then machining them to tolerance — all near the point of need.

“When critical parts are unavailable through traditional supply channels, the ability to manufacture or repair components closer to the point of help improve readiness,” said Brian Kristaponis, president of Phillips Additive Manufacturing Solutions.

SPEE3D Cold Spray — Metal Parts Without Melting

The third key technology was SPEE3D’s Expeditionary Manufacturing Unit (EMU), featuring the XSPEE3D cold spray metal 3D printer. Unlike conventional metal additive manufacturing that melts material, SPEE3D’s Cold Spray Manufacturing accelerates metal powder to supersonic velocities, depositing it onto a substrate to build dense components without melting. The system produced 32 mission-critical metal parts — 24 manufactured via reachback at the Knoxville Armory in Tennessee, and eight produced at sea aboard the support vessel MV Asterix.

3YOURMIND — The Digital Thread

The software backbone came from 3YOURMIND, whose tools handled part identification, order management, and production planning across all participating units. This “digital thread” is the unglamorous but essential piece that turns a collection of printers into a functioning supply system — knowing what to make, where, and whether it meets qualification standards.

Why This Matters: From Weeks to Hours

The supply-chain impact is dramatic. One example: a bracket for the destroyer USS Halsey carried a roughly 40-week traditional lead time. Via 3D printing, it was produced in about two weeks, comfortably ahead of a 30-day deployment window. Aboard Essex, the crew described the goal simply — “manufacture parts on site at the point of need” — noting that many shipboard parts are no longer manufactured through traditional channels at all.

This same pattern appeared in a separate Marine Corps exercise. During CJLOTS 26 in South Korea, Marines with the 3rd Maintenance Battalion 3D printed a replacement part for a U.S. Coast Guard boat, turning a two-to-three-week shipping delay into a same-day fix that cost approximately $12.

Cold Spray Technology: How It Works

Cold spray additive manufacturing (CSAM) is fundamentally different from the FDM and SLA printers most people are familiar with. Instead of melting material layer by layer, cold spray uses compressed gas — typically helium or nitrogen — to accelerate metal powder particles to speeds of Mach 3 or higher. Upon impact with the substrate, these particles deform and bond mechanically, building dense metal components without reaching the melting point.

This approach offers several advantages for military applications:

• No heat-affected zone — critical for repairing sensitive components where welding could cause damage
• Multi-material capability — can deposit aluminum, copper, stainless steel, and titanium alloys
• Rapid production — parts can be produced in hours rather than weeks
• Field-deployable — containerized systems can operate in austere environments

The U.S. Air Force has already demonstrated cold spray’s repair potential, restoring a wing faring slip joint on an active flying aircraft. “The only other alternative would have been to remove and replace the part, costing roughly $500,000 and eight weeks,” said Brian James, additive manufacturing chief engineer at Ellsworth Air Force Base.

What This Means for the 3D Printing Industry

RIMPAC 2026 signals several trends that extend well beyond military applications:

1. Hybrid manufacturing is the future. The Haas CNC + Meltio wire-laser combination shows that additive and subtractive processes are converging in single, containerized units. Expect more machines that can both build and finish parts.
2. The software layer matters as much as the hardware. 3YOURMIND’s role underlines that the real constraint in distributed manufacturing isn’t the printer — it’s part identification, qualification, and workflow management.
3. Polymer printing has reached operational maturity. Printing 1,000+ parts in 12-foot seas proves that polymer AM can handle real production volumes in challenging environments.
4. Metal qualification remains the hard problem. Proving that a 3D-printed metal component is airworthy or structurally sound is the unfinished work standing between demonstration and deployment at scale.

How TT3DPrint Can Help

While the Navy is deploying containerized factories at sea, the same core technologies — FDM printing, rapid prototyping, and custom manufacturing — are accessible to businesses and creators worldwide. At TT3DPrint, we specialize in custom FDM 3D printing for figurines, prototypes, educational tools, and creative products. Whether you need a single prototype or a batch of custom items, our 220+ printer fleet delivers quality results with fast turnaround.

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Conclusion

RIMPAC 2026 marks a turning point. The U.S. Navy didn’t just demonstrate that 3D printing works at sea — it proved that distributed manufacturing can function as a real logistics system, with working software, trained operators, and thousands of parts flowing from digital files to physical components. From cold spray metal repairs saving $500,000 per part to polymer printers producing 1,000+ components in rough seas, the message is clear: additive manufacturing is no longer a workshop curiosity. It is becoming an operational necessity.

Sources: Manufacturing Mag, Marine Link, Naval Postgraduate School, 3D Printing Industry, SPEE3D