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Firestorm Labs printed more than 1,000 parts and built 12 flight-ready Squall FPV quadcopters inside a containerized factory aboard the USS Essex during a two-week transit to RIMPAC 2026.
It is the first maritime run of its xCell expeditionary manufacturing platform, and the drones were subsequently flown in Hawaii by Marines from the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion acting as adversary aircraft in a counter-UAS exercise.
Production ran in sea states peaking at 5, with 12-foot waves, in what the company describes as the heaviest seas off Southern California in five years. Output fell into three categories: mechanical test components to check whether the printers held tolerance underway, Squall and UAS parts, and repair items requested by the ship’s crew.
The deployment sat ins