Firestorm Labs Manufactures Drones and Parts at Sea Aboard USS Essex, Demonstrating Expeditionary Production in Adverse Maritime Conditions En Route to RIMPAC 2026

Firestorm prints more than 1,000 parts, builds 12 Squall FPV drones, and trains service members in two weeks at sea — drones later flown by Marines as adversary aircraft in a counter-drone exercise in Hawaii

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Firestorm Labs, Inc., a defense technology company enabling on-demand production of mission-critical systems at the edge with additive manufacturing, today announced that its xCell containerized manufacturing platform produced more than 1,000 parts en route to RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii. This demonstration took place over two weeks aboard the USS Essex, part of the Naval Postgraduate School CAMRE's RIMPAC distributed advanced manufacturing network facilitated by FLEETWERX, and showcases the ability to manufacture drones and mission-critical components at sea in real operating conditions.

The deployment marks the first maritime demonstration of xCell's expeditionary manufacturing capabilities: building assets at the point of need, aboard a moving vessel, without resupply from shore. Every part printed on deck is a part that doesn't have to be flown, shipped, or convoyed across contested waters, cutting the fuel, aircraft hours, and personnel required to keep a vessel mission-capable. Repairs that once meant waiting days or weeks for a resupply run, or returning to port entirely, can now happen in hours while the ship stays on station.

The capability directly answers the repair demands straining the fleet. Of the roughly 290 ships in active U.S. Navy service, only about a third are deployed at sea at any given time, with another third on training maneuvers and the final third undergoing repairs, even as China's navy has grown to some 400 ships supported by hundreds of supply vessels. Manufacturing on station keeps ships in the fight longer and eases pressure on an overstretched shore-based maintenance and supply chain.

Operating in conditions peaking at a sea state 5 with 12-foot waves, xCell printed three categories of output: mechanical test components to evaluate printer performance underway, Squall (Firestorm's FPV quadcopter) and UAS components, and military repair parts requested by the crew.

Three parts stood out. The first was an Apache Rotor Guard Droop Stop. During the first ever Army-Navy at-sea Apache operations, Firestorm designed and manufactured a droop stop to reduce risk to the aircraft's main rotor and blades. While Apaches are routinely transported by ship, they had never operated from a Navy deck with rotors mounted, and this deployment saw them do so amid the waves, rocking, and wind of some of the heaviest seas off Southern California in five years. In those conditions, an unprotected rotor system faces eventual and costly damage: the main rotor is a $500,000 component, and a single blade strike against the deck runs $230,000 per blade, across four blades. Firestorm's printed droop stop protects against exactly that.

The second was a marine-inspired Life Preserving Unit (LPU) vacuum adapter. Inflatable LPUs must be inflated and deflated for testing, but no adapter between the vacuum and the LPU nozzle was known to exist. Working from a sailor's concept, Firestorm produced three variations tailored to different vacuums and use cases.

The third was the Squalls themselves. In support of RIMPAC 2026, Firestorm Labs printed and built 12 Squall FPV drones aboard the USS Essex using its xCell expeditionary manufacturing platform, then flew them at RIMPAC in Hawaii. Firestorm trained soldiers, sailors, and Marines on additive manufacturing, assembling the Squalls, and flight operations, including Marines from the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR). Over a three-day period at Makua Military Reservation in Oahu, Hawaii, those Marines flew the Squalls as the "red cell" adversary during a Counter-UAS (C-UAS) exercise, supporting experimentation for NPS’s CAMRE at RIMPAC.

Beyond those highlights, Firestorm produced more than 20 additional crew-requested parts. These included gauges for deck tie-down inspection, reverse-engineered valve handwheels, a non-conductive EOD digging knife, electrical covers, a Starlink deployment mount, and cable and door hardware, all items that were broken, lost, or otherwise unavailable at sea.

Each part carries a strategic implication. The droop stop made a first-of-its-kind Apache operation possible. The LPU adapter turned a sailor's idea into working hardware in days. And the flight-ready Squalls built underway point to attritable combat mass regenerated at sea, not shipped from a factory thousands of miles away.

"The Indo-Pacific logistics problem is real, and most of the answers on offer live in a pitch deck," said Dan Magy, CEO of Firestorm. "We printed flight-ready aircraft and the parts a crew actually needed, in the conditions they'd actually face. That's what manufacturing at the edge looks like when it works."

By producing flight-ready uncrewed systems and mission-critical parts on a deployed vessel, xCell shows that expeditionary additive manufacturing can compress the distance between requirement and capability, an advantage for the Department of War and allied partners operating across extended and contested distances.

About Firestorm Labs

The mission of Firestorm Labs is to equip warfighters with mission-critical capabilities at the point of need. Its xCell platforms deliver containerized expeditionary manufacturing capabilities, enabling production and sustainment of not only its proprietary modular, rapidly configurable unmanned systems, but also parts, components, and partner platforms. Learn more at Launchfirestorm.com.

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