Defense and Aerospace Drive 2025's Additive Manufacturing Surge
Military procurement patterns have fundamentally altered the additive manufacturing landscape as Department of Defense spending reached $800 million in 2024, projecting toward $2.6 billion by decade's end. This investment surge reflects strategic priorities extending beyond cost reduction into supply chain resilience, forward deployment capability, and geometric design freedom that conventional manufacturing cannot match. The implications ripple throughout American manufacturing as defense qualification requirements establish standards that commercial customers increasingly expect from their suppliers.
The PR Newswire report from Additive Manufacturing Research documents 166 percent year-over-year growth in direct DoD additive spending, with analysis covering hardware, materials, and services across polymer and metal 3D printing technologies. The study, authored by Tali Rosman who previously oversaw the first metal 3D printer installed on a US Navy ship, notes escalating geopolitical tensions have positioned additive manufacturing as crucial for defense entities to rapidly conceptualize, develop, and deploy critical assets. Analysis draws from expert interviews within the US Navy, US Air Force and Space Force, and US Army to provide recommendations for additive manufacturing vendors seeking defense market entry.
The spending acceleration encompasses every major additive manufacturing technology category. Powder bed fusion systems producing metal components for aircraft and weapons systems represent significant investment. Directed energy deposition equipment enabling repair and modification of existing components addresses sustainment challenges. Metal binder jetting systems promising higher throughput for certain geometries attract development funding. Polymer systems including continuous carbon fiber printers provide lightweight structural components and tooling that complement metal additive capabilities throughout the defense industrial base.
Aerospace applications have driven much of this acceleration through programs demonstrating what additive manufacturing can achieve at scale. NASA's RAMPT project has conducted over 500 test-firings of 3D-printed injectors, nozzles, and chamber hardware totaling more than 16,000 seconds of operation. The rigorous testing protocol validates material properties and manufacturing processes under conditions simulating actual rocket engine operation, building confidence that additively manufactured components can meet the extreme demands of space propulsion.
Engineers developing a full-scale additively manufactured version of the RS-25 engine, the workhorse powerplant propelling Space Launch System missions, project potential cost reductions of 70 percent with manufacturing time cut in half. These dramatic economics reflect fundamental differences between traditional manufacturing requiring extensive machining from forgings and additive approaches building near-net-shape components with minimal material waste. The RS-25 program demonstrates how additive manufacturing scales from laboratory demonstration to production hardware meeting the most demanding performance requirements.
Carbon fiber reinforced composites have proven particularly valuable for aerospace weight reduction where every pound saved translates to payload capacity or fuel efficiency. The RAMPT project demonstrated 40 percent weight savings by integrating carbon-fiber composites with additively manufactured metal structures. These hybrid approaches combine the geometric freedom of 3D printing with composite materials science, creating components impossible through either technology alone. The integration requires engineering teams comfortable working across traditional disciplinary boundaries separating metals, polymers, and composites.
Understanding Carbon Fiber 3D Printing Reshapes American Manufacturing as Defense Spending Surges provides essential context for how continuous fiber reinforcement achieves strength-to-weight ratios enabling these aerospace applications. The technology deposits carbon fiber strands within polymer matrices, creating structures with tensile properties approaching aluminum at roughly half the weight. This combination proves particularly valuable for secondary structures, brackets, housings, and tooling where weight reduction improves system performance without requiring the extreme temperature resistance of metal components.
Supply chain considerations have elevated additive manufacturing from convenient alternative to strategic necessity for defense procurement. Traditional aerospace supply chains requiring 18-month lead times for cast or forged components create vulnerability when demand surges or suppliers experience disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these vulnerabilities dramatically as manufacturers discovered single-source dependencies for critical components they had assumed readily available. Additive manufacturing compresses these timelines to weeks while enabling distributed production across multiple qualified facilities.
The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's RAMPT research demonstrates how public-private partnerships accelerate technology transfer from government laboratories to commercial application. NASA's strategy encourages commercial and academic participation by offering partnership opportunities where industry and academia contribute development costs while gaining access to technology for their own applications. This approach delivered refined alloys including GRCop42 copper alloy that enabled Relativity Space to launch the first fully 3D-printed rocket in March 2023.
The RAMPT project received NASA's 2024 Invention of the Year award for contributions to deep space exploration goals, recognizing both technical achievement and successful technology transfer to commercial partners. Program leaders emphasize delivering prototypes in weeks instead of years, conducting dozens of scaled ground tests in periods that would permit just one or two tests of conventionally manufactured hardware, and producing technology solutions safer, lighter, and less costly than traditional components. These capabilities fundamentally change how aerospace programs approach development timelines and risk management.
The shift extends beyond new production into sustainment of legacy systems that represent enormous capital investment for military operators. Military platforms designed decades ago face obsolescence challenges when original component suppliers exit the market or tooling becomes unavailable. A fighter aircraft designed in the 1980s may require components whose manufacturers no longer exist, creating urgent requirements that traditional supply chains cannot address within operationally acceptable timelines.
America Makes has distributed millions in project funding throughout 2024 and 2025 addressing qualification barriers that have historically limited additive manufacturing adoption. Their IMPACT 3.0 program targets casting and forging operations, demonstrating how additive technologies improve lead time, productivity, and yield in traditional manufacturing environments. The recently announced CATACS project provides $1.3 million addressing corrosion testing and qualification protocols for metal additively manufactured components, tackling technical barriers preventing broader adoption in marine and other corrosive environments.
Workforce development challenges accompany the technology transition as manufacturers discover additive manufacturing requires engineering competencies spanning materials science, process control, and design optimization that differ substantially from conventional machining expertise. The design rules that produce successful machined parts frequently fail when applied to additive manufacturing, requiring engineers to unlearn conventional approaches and develop new intuitions about what geometries print successfully and which create problems.
Regional manufacturers must develop or acquire these capabilities to participate in defense supply chains increasingly mandating additive qualifications. The investment extends beyond equipment purchases into training, process documentation, and quality system upgrades meeting defense customer expectations. As detailed in Rapid Prototyping Versus Production: When Carbon Fiber 3D Printing Delivers ROI, manufacturers must evaluate where additive approaches deliver value versus where conventional manufacturing remains more appropriate for their specific customer requirements and production volumes.
The economics favor manufacturers who can demonstrate process control, material traceability, and quality documentation meeting aerospace and defense standards. Qualification costs can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars for critical applications, creating barriers that favor manufacturers with existing quality infrastructure and customer relationships. However, once qualified, manufacturers gain access to demand that continues growing as defense customers expand additive manufacturing applications throughout their programs.
Contract manufacturing relationships enable smaller defense suppliers to access additive capabilities without capital equipment investment. Qualified 3D printing service providers offer capacity for prototyping, bridge production, and ongoing low-volume manufacturing that maintains supply chain flexibility while meeting stringent defense quality requirements. These partnerships prove particularly valuable for manufacturers evaluating additive approaches or facing demand variability that would leave owned equipment underutilized during slow periods.
Elsner Engineering Works: Your Partner in Carbon Fiber 3D Printing
At Elsner Engineering Works, our Markforged X7 carbon fiber printer delivers continuous fiber reinforced components with ±0.125mm precision across build volumes reaching 330mm × 270mm × 200mm. Located in Hanover, Pennsylvania, we serve manufacturers throughout the Mid-Atlantic region requiring production-grade carbon fiber parts.
Our Services Include:
- 3D Printing Services - Continuous carbon fiber, fiberglass, and Kevlar reinforced components for prototyping through production
- Contract Manufacturing - Engineering support from design optimization through finished component delivery
Ready to Explore Carbon Fiber 3D Printing? Contact Elsner Engineering Works at (717) 637-5991 to discuss how continuous fiber 3D printing can address your manufacturing challenges.
Works Cited
"NASA Additive Manufacturing Project Shapes Future for Agency, Industry Rocket Makers." NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, 1 Aug. 2024, www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-additive-manufacturing-project-shapes-future-for-agency-industry-rocket-makers/. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
"New Market Study on Additive Manufacturing for Military and Defense Sees Momentous Growth." PR Newswire, 3 Dec. 2024, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-market-study-on-additive-manufacturing-for-military-and-defense-sees-momentous-growth-am-research-estimates-800m-in-direct-dod-spend-in-2024--exceeding-2-6b-in-2030--302319720.html. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.