SpaceX employee harm charges at Starbase outpace trade rivals

SpaceX workers usually tend to be injured whereas working at Starbase than any of its different manufacturing services, in accordance with firm employee security information reviewed by TechCrunch.

Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing website that just lately integrated as its personal Texas metropolis, logged harm charges nearly six instances larger than the typical for comparable area car manufacturing outfits and practically 3 times larger than aerospace manufacturing as a complete in 2024, in accordance with Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) knowledge launched in Might. That oversized harm price has continued since 2019, when SpaceX started sharing Starbase harm knowledge with the federal regulator. 

Starbase is house to SpaceX’s most bold program: a completely reusable, ultra-heavy-lift rocket referred to as Starship. The corporate has been transferring 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 exams, 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 fast progress comes at a price. And whereas harm charges alone don’t present an entire image of the protection 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 referred to as Complete Recordable Incident Fee (TRIR) to measure an organization’s security file and examine it to trade 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 equivalent to amputations. 

TechCrunch calculated the TRIR primarily based on that knowledge, which incorporates the entire variety of incidents and complete variety of hours labored by SpaceX workers at every website. 

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 employees in 2024, when it employed a median of two,690 employees, in accordance 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 car manufacturing operation. The harm 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 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 price throughout all of SpaceX’s manufacturing services — which incorporates an engine growth and testing website 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 website in Redmond, Washington — is 2.28. 

These different services report decrease TRIR charges, although most nonetheless exceed the trade averages. As an illustration, 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 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 Power Base. 

Former OSHA Chief of Employees Debbie Berkowitz instructed TechCrunch by way of e-mail that Starbase’s TRIR “is a pink flag that there are critical questions of safety that have to be addressed.” 

Nevertheless, there’s a debate amongst security professionals about whether or not TRIR is essentially the most dependable metric for assessing and predicting harm charges, notably critical incidents like fatalities, and particularly for small firms. 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 services 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 shops together with Reuters have uncovered tons of of beforehand unreported employee accidents, together with crushed limbs and one fatality. 

The 2024 harm 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. But it surely nonetheless leads amongst SpaceX’s land-based services, and is second total 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 price. SpaceX didn’t reply to request for remark.   

NASA’s stake

NASA has a serious 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 Industrial Crew providers to the Worldwide House Station include explicit clauses that permit the company to take motion within the case of a serious breach of security, equivalent to a fatality or a “willful” or “repeat” OSHA violation. 

Whereas a persistently excessive TRIR price could be proof of a security downside, it isn’t an automated set off for motion, and doesn’t fall below the definition of a “main breach of security” of their contracts. 

“NASA interacts incessantly 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 instructed 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 keep 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.