SpaceX workers usually tend to be injured whereas working at Starbase than any of its different manufacturing amenities, in keeping with firm employee security data reviewed by TechCrunch.
Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing website that lately integrated as its personal Texas metropolis, logged harm charges that have been nearly 6x larger than the common for comparable house vehicle-manufacturing outfits and almost 3x larger than aerospace manufacturing as a complete in 2024, in keeping with Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) knowledge launched in Could. That oversized harm charge has endured since 2019, when SpaceX started sharing Starbase harm knowledge with the federal regulator.
Starbase is residence to SpaceX’s most formidable program: a totally reusable, ultra-heavy-lift rocket known as Starship. The corporate has been shifting at a breakneck tempo to carry Starship on-line to launch Starlink web satellites and different payloads.
Since Starship’s first orbital check in April 2023, SpaceX has tried eight further built-in flights. Throughout three of these assessments, the corporate made historical past by catching the huge Tremendous Heavy booster with “chopstick” arms hooked up to the launch tower.
The information means that SpaceX’s fast progress comes at a price. And whereas harm charges alone don’t present a whole image of the security tradition at Starbase, they do supply a uncommon glimpse into the working circumstances of the world’s main house firm.
Breaking down Starbase numbers
Starbase Metropolis, an unincorporated city in Texas. Picture Credit:SpaceX
OSHA makes use of a standardized security metric known as Whole Recordable Incident Price (TRIR) to measure an organization’s security file and evaluate it to trade friends, like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. The publicly out there knowledge has limitations. It doesn’t distinguish between minor accidents like stitches versus critical incidents similar to amputations.
TechCrunch calculated the TRIR primarily based on that knowledge, which incorporates the whole variety of incidents and complete variety of hours labored by SpaceX workers at every website.
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Starbase, which performs a central function in SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s mission to make life multi-planetary, is an outlier within the firm and throughout the trade as a complete. Its TRIR topped out at 4.27 accidents per 100 staff in 2024, when it employed a mean of two,690 staff, in keeping with the info submitted to OSHA. Injured Starbase workers have 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 assessed by the U.S. authorities as an area vehicle-manufacturing operation. The harm charge on this sector has fallen dramatically since 1994, dropping from 4.2 accidents per 100 staff to 0.7 accidents per 100 staff in 2023, in keeping with historic knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS calculates these charges by means of its annual firm surveys, which asks for a similar data present in OSHA’s employee harm kinds.) However regardless of main adjustments in security processes throughout the trade, Starbase is nearer to the charges of 30 years in the past.
The harm charge throughout all of SpaceX’s manufacturing amenities — which incorporates an engine improvement and testing website in McGregor, Texas; a Starlink satellite-manufacturing advanced in Bastrop, Texas; the Falcon rocket advanced in Hawthorne, California; and one other satellite-manufacturing website in Redmond, Washington — is 2.28.
These different amenities report decrease TRIR charges, although most nonetheless exceed the trade averages. As an example, 2024 knowledge reveals TRIR charges of two.48 at McGregor, 3.49 at Bastrop, 1.43 at Hawthorne, 2.89 at Redmond. 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 House Drive Base.
Former OSHA chief of employees Debbie Berkowitz informed TechCrunch by way of e-mail that Starbase’s TRIR “is a pink flag that there are critical issues of safety that have to be addressed.”
Nevertheless, 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 firms. A latest paper on TRIR questioned its statistical validity and advocated that organizations use different 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 lots of of beforehand unreported employee accidents, together with crushed limbs and one fatality.
The 2024 harm charge at Starbase marks an enchancment to that of the prior 12 months, which topped out at 5.9 accidents per 100 staff in 2023 and 4.8 accidents in 2022. However 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 relating to that location’s harm charge. SpaceX didn’t reply to request for remark.
NASA’s stake
NASA Crew-2 Mission in 2021 returns to Earth. Picture Credit:SpaceX below a CC BY NC 2.0 license.
NASA has a significant stake in Starship’s improvement. The company is relying on utilizing the rocket to return people to the moon earlier than the top 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 Industrial Crew providers to the Worldwide House Station include specific clauses that enable the company to take motion within the case of a significant breach of security, similar to a fatality or a “willful” or “repeat” OSHA violation.
Whereas a persistently excessive TRIR charge could be proof of a security drawback, it isn’t an computerized set off for motion and doesn’t fall below the definition of a “main breach of security” of their contracts.
“NASA interacts ceaselessly with its companions, together with SpaceX, to make sure security from a mission assurance perspective, and stays in common contact with the corporate throughout regular contract administration,” a NASA spokesperson informed TechCrunch in response to questions in regards to the firm’s TRIR. “Security is paramount to NASA’s mission success. The company continues to work with all our industrial companions to construct and preserve a wholesome security tradition.”
Amongst rocket makers with automobiles in operation, Starbase nonetheless leads the pack: at ULA’s manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama, the TRIR is 1.12 accidents per 100 staff; at Blue Origin’s rocket park on the coast of Florida, the speed is 1.09.
