Spacex employees are more injured while working on starbase than other manufacturing facilities, according to the company’s safety records checked by TechCrunch.
Starbase, a raging area of launching newly attached as its own cities 2024, according to the Averospace administration at the age of the Averospace at the age of 2024, which is higher than the damage to the damage to the injury continues since 2019, when the SPACEX to share sterbase damage data with a federal regulator.
Starbase is home to the most ambitious spacex program: a fully applicable, ultra-heavy rocket lift called star. The company moving at a speed speed to bring the stars online to catch satellites with Starlink Internet satellites and other payloads.
Since The first orbital test of the star On April 2023, Spacex tried eight additional flight flights. During three of the tests, The company makes history By catching widespread super heavy booster with “chopstick” arms attached to the launch tower.
The data suggested that the speed progress in the spacex comes at a cost. And while the rates of damage alone cannot give a complete picture of starbase safety culture, they provide a rare view of world working conditions.
Breaking Starbase numbers
Osha uses a standardized metric called total incident incident rate (trol) to measure a company safety record, such as the blue source of industry and united launches. Public data available has limits. It does not differ between minor injuries such as stitches against severe incidents such as amputations.
TechCrunch is calculated on the trir based on that data, which includes the total number of incidents and overall number of hours working with Spacex employees on each site.
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Starbase, playing an important role in the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mission to make a multi-planet life, a more than the company and the entire industry. Its trir is the first of 4.27 injuries per 100 workers in 2024, when an average of 2,690 workers, according to the data submitted to OSHA. The wounded Schalbase employees did not make their normal job duties in total 3,558 days duty-duty, plus 656 missing days where the injuries were unable to work.
Starbase is classified by US government as an operation to make a car in space. Damage damage to this sector falls suddenly Since 1994drop from 4.2 injuries per 100 workers to 0.7 Damages per 100 workers in 2023According to historical data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. .
Damage damage across the SpaceX manufacturing facilities – which includes an engine development and testing site in McGregor, Texas; a starlink satellite manufacturing complex in bastosi; The Falcon Rocket Complex in Hawthorne, California; and another satellite manufacturing site in Redmond, Washington – is 2.28.
These other facilities report below trir rates, however greater mass exceed industries. For example, 2024 data showed Trir Rates 2.48 in McGregor, 3.49 in Bastrop, 1.43 in Hawthorne, 2.89 on Redmond site. 2024 trir for aerospace manufacturing as a whole 1.6.
SpaceX also operates several non-manufacturing sites, including barge operations off both coasts, offices in Sunnyvale, California, and launch sites and cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force base.
The former chief of the Sabda staff Debbie Berkowitz tells TechCrunch by email that Starbase trir with serious safety issues should be answered. ”
However, there is a debate of safety professionals if the trir is the most reliable metric for evaluating damage rates, especially serious injuries such as serious incidents such as smaller companies. A new paper In the trir asked its statistic voryity and suggest that organizations use alternative measures of safe performance.
In 14 OSHA inspects at SpaceX facilities in the last four years, six involving starbase accidents and injuries. That includes a partial finger amputation in 2021 and a crane is the collapse of June 2025. The inspection is still maintenance. Investigations in other news including reuters The hundreds of previously did not formate work injuries, including crushed arms and a death.
The 2024 Starbase damage rates marked a progression in the first year, preceding space-based facilities by 2023 and 4.8.
Osha confirms the calculch calculating in the Starbase email at the email email, but if not, does not respond to questions regarding location damage to location. Spacex does not respond to the request for comment.
NASA’s stake
NASA has a significant stake of star development. The agency counts the use of rocket to return the people to the moon before the end of this decade, and it Pay more than $ 4 billion In the spacex for two stars in the star snake on the lunar face.
The contract is both for Starship Lander And Spacex’s contract for its commercial crew services to the international space station containing particular clauses that allow the agency to take action in the case of a major breach of safety, as a “repeat” Ohha violation.
While a steady high trir rate can evidence of a safety problem, it is not an automatic cause of action, and does not fall Under the definition to a “great breach of salvation” in their contracts.
“Its always talking to its companions, including the spacex, to ensure the security of a mission commitment,” a Techrrunch Techrunch speaker to answer questions about TEPRA. “Salvation is important to NASA’s mission success. The agency continues to work with all our commercial companions to build and maintain a healthy safety culture.”
Among rocket makers with operations vehicles, Starbase continues to pack: at decatur’s ULA facility, Trir is 1.12 injuries per 100 workers; In the Rocket Park in Blue Origay on the Beach in Florida, the rate is 1.09.
