SpaceX workers usually tend to be injured whereas working at Starbase than any of its different manufacturing amenities, in accordance with firm employee security information reviewed by TechCrunch.
Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing website that not too long ago included as its personal Texas metropolis, logged damage charges virtually six instances larger than the typical for comparable house automobile manufacturing outfits and practically thrice larger than aerospace manufacturing as an entire in 2024, in accordance with Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) knowledge launched in Might. That oversized damage price has persevered since 2019, when SpaceX started sharing Starbase damage knowledge with the federal regulator.
Starbase is house to SpaceX’s most bold program: a totally reusable, ultra-heavy-lift rocket referred to 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 check in April 2023, SpaceX has tried eight further built-in flights. Throughout three of these checks, the corporate made historical past by catching the large Tremendous Heavy booster with “chopstick” arms connected to the launch tower.
The information means that SpaceX’s speedy progress comes at a price. And whereas damage charges alone don’t present an entire image of the protection tradition at Starbase, they do provide 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 referred to as Complete Recordable Incident Fee (TRIR) to measure an organization’s security report and examine it to business friends, like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. The publicly accessible knowledge has limitations. It doesn’t distinguish between minor accidents like stitches versus critical incidents resembling amputations.
TechCrunch calculated the TRIR primarily based on that knowledge, which incorporates the overall variety of incidents and complete variety of hours labored by SpaceX workers at every website.
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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 an entire. Its TRIR topped out at 4.27 accidents per 100 employees in 2024, when it employed a median of two,690 employees, in accordance with the information 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 classed by the U.S. authorities as an area automobile manufacturing operation. The damage price 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, in accordance with historic knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS calculates these charges by way of its annual firm surveys, which asks for a similar info present in OSHA’s employee damage kinds.) However regardless of main modifications in security processes throughout the business, Starbase is nearer to the charges of 30 years in the past.
The damage price throughout all of SpaceX’s manufacturing amenities — which incorporates an engine improvement and testing website in McGregor, Texas; a Starlink satellite tv for pc manufacturing complicated in Bastrop, Texas; the Falcon rocket complicated in Hawthorne, California; and one other satellite tv for pc manufacturing website in Redmond, Washington — is 2.28.
These different amenities report decrease TRIR charges, although most nonetheless exceed the business averages. For example, 2024 knowledge reveals TRIR charges 2.48 at McGregor, 3.49 at Bastrop, 1.43 at Hawthorne, 2.89 on the Redmond website. The 2024 TRIR for aerospace manufacturing as an entire 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 Power Base.
Former OSHA Chief of Workers Debbie Berkowitz informed TechCrunch through electronic mail that Starbase’s TRIR “is a pink flag that there are critical issues of safety that must be addressed.”
Nonetheless, there’s a debate amongst security professionals about whether or not TRIR is essentially the most dependable metric for assessing and predicting damage charges, significantly critical incidents like fatalities, and particularly for small corporations. 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 continues to be ongoing. Investigations by different information retailers together with Reuters have uncovered lots of of beforehand unreported employee accidents, together with crushed limbs and one fatality.
The 2024 damage price 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. 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 electronic mail, however in any other case didn’t reply to questions concerning that location’s damage price. SpaceX didn’t reply to request for remark.
NASA’s stake
NASA Crew-2 Mission in 2021 returns to Earth. Picture Credit:SpaceX underneath a CC BY NC 2.0 license.
NASA has a serious 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 Business Crew companies to the Worldwide Area Station include explicit clauses that enable the company to take motion within the case of a serious breach of security, resembling a fatality or a “willful” or “repeat” OSHA violation.
Whereas a persistently excessive TRIR price may be proof of a security drawback, it’s not an computerized set off for motion, and doesn’t fall underneath the definition of a “main breach of security” of their contracts.
“NASA interacts steadily 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 concerning 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 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.
