SpaceX staff usually tend to be injured whereas working at Starbase than any of its different manufacturing amenities, based on firm employee security data reviewed by TechCrunch.
Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing web site that not too long ago included as its personal Texas metropolis, logged harm charges nearly six instances increased than the common for comparable area car manufacturing outfits and almost thrice increased than aerospace manufacturing as a complete in 2024, based on Occupational Security and Health Administration (OSHA) information launched in Could. That oversized harm fee has continued since 2019, when SpaceX started sharing Starbase harm information with the federal regulator.
Starbase is house to SpaceX’s most formidable program: a completely reusable, ultra-heavy-lift rocket known as Starship. The corporate has been shifting at a breakneck tempo to deliver Starship on-line to launch Starlink web satellites and different payloads.
Since Starship’s first orbital take a look at in April 2023, SpaceX has tried eight extra built-in flights. Throughout three of these assessments, the corporate made historical past by catching the large Tremendous Heavy booster with “chopstick” arms hooked up to the launch tower.
The information means that SpaceX’s fast progress comes at a value. And whereas harm charges alone don’t present an entire image of the security tradition at Starbase, they do provide a uncommon glimpse into the working situations of the world’s main area firm.
Breaking down Starbase numbers
OSHA makes use of a standardized security metric known as Complete Recordable Incident Fee (TRIR) to measure an organization’s security document and examine it to business friends, like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. The publicly accessible information has limitations. It doesn’t distinguish between minor accidents like stitches versus critical incidents equivalent to amputations.
TechCrunch calculated the TRIR primarily based on that information, which incorporates the entire variety of incidents and whole variety of hours labored by SpaceX staff at every web site.
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Starbase, which performs a central position in SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s mission to make life multi-planetary, is an outlier within the firm and throughout the business as a complete. Its TRIR topped out at 4.27 accidents per 100 employees in 2024, when it employed a mean of two,690 employees, based on the info submitted to OSHA. Injured Starbase staff had been unable to carry out their regular job duties for a complete of three,558 restricted-duty days, plus 656 lost-time days the place accidents made them unable to work in any respect.
Starbase is classed by the U.S. authorities as an area car manufacturing operation. The harm fee on this sector has fallen dramatically since 1994, dropping from 4.2 accidents per 100 employees to 0.7 accidents per 100 employees in 2023, based on historic information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS calculates these charges by means of its annual firm surveys, which asks for a similar info present in OSHA’s employee harm varieties.) However regardless of main modifications in security processes throughout the business, Starbase is nearer to the charges of 30 years in the past.
The harm fee throughout all of SpaceX’s manufacturing amenities — which incorporates an engine growth and testing web site in McGregor, Texas; a Starlink satellite tv for pc manufacturing advanced in Bastrop, Texas; the Falcon rocket advanced in Hawthorne, California; and one other satellite tv for pc manufacturing web site in Redmond, Washington — is 2.28.
These different amenities report decrease TRIR charges, although most nonetheless exceed the business averages. For example, 2024 information exhibits TRIR charges 2.48 at McGregor, 3.49 at Bastrop, 1.43 at Hawthorne, 2.89 on the Redmond web site. The 2024 TRIR for aerospace manufacturing as a complete is 1.6.
SpaceX additionally operates a number of non-manufacturing websites, together with barge operations off each coasts, workplaces in Sunnyvale, California, and launch websites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Area Drive Base.
Former OSHA Chief of Employees Debbie Berkowitz instructed TechCrunch through e-mail that Starbase’s TRIR “is a red flag that there are serious safety issues that need to be addressed.”
Nonetheless, there’s a debate amongst security professionals about whether or not TRIR is probably the most dependable metric for assessing and predicting harm charges, significantly critical incidents like fatalities, and particularly for small corporations. A current paper on TRIR questioned its statistical validity and advocated that organizations use various measures of security efficiency as a substitute.
Of the 14 OSHA inspections at SpaceX amenities over the previous 4 years, six concerned accidents and accidents at Starbase. That features a partial finger amputation in 2021 and a crane collapse in June 2025. The latter inspection remains to be ongoing. Investigations by different information shops together with Reuters have uncovered a whole bunch of beforehand unreported employee accidents, together with crushed limbs and one fatality.
The 2024 harm fee at Starbase marks an enchancment to that of the prior yr, which topped out at 5.9 accidents per 100 employees in 2023 and 4.8 accidents in 2022. Nevertheless it nonetheless leads amongst SpaceX’s land-based amenities, and is second general solely to its west coast booster restoration operations, which has a TRIR of seven.6.
OSHA confirmed TechCrunch’s calculation of Starbase’s TRIR over e-mail, however in any other case didn’t reply to questions concerning that location’s harm fee. SpaceX didn’t reply to request for remark.
NASA’s stake
NASA has a significant stake in Starship’s growth. The company is relying on utilizing the rocket to return people to the Moon earlier than the tip of this decade, and it’s paying greater than $4 billion to SpaceX for 2 crewed Starship flights to the lunar floor.
Each the contract for the Starship lander and SpaceX’s contract for its Business Crew providers to the Worldwide Area Station comprise specific clauses that permit the company to take motion within the case of a significant breach of security, equivalent to a fatality or a “willful” or “repeat” OSHA violation.
Whereas a persistently excessive TRIR fee may be proof of a security downside, it isn’t an computerized set off for motion, and doesn’t fall below the definition of a “major breach of safety” of their contracts.
“NASA interacts frequently with its partners, including SpaceX, to ensure safety from a mission assurance perspective, and remains in regular contact with the company during normal contract administration,” a NASA spokesperson instructed TechCrunch in response to questions in regards to the firm’s TRIR. “Safety is paramount to NASA’s mission success. The agency continues to work with all our commercial partners to build and maintain a healthy safety culture.”
Amongst rocket makers with autos in operation, Starbase nonetheless leads the pack: at ULA’s manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama, the TRIR is 1.12 accidents per 100 employees; at Blue Origin’s rocket park on the coast of Florida, the speed is 1.09.
