SpaceX staff usually tend to be injured whereas working at Starbase than any of its different manufacturing amenities, based on firm employee security information reviewed by TechCrunch.
Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing website that lately included as its personal Texas metropolis, logged harm charges nearly six instances larger than the typical for comparable house car manufacturing outfits and practically 3 times larger than aerospace manufacturing as a complete in 2024, based on Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) knowledge launched in Could. That oversized harm charge has persevered since 2019, when SpaceX started sharing Starbase harm knowledge with the federal regulator.
Starbase is residence to SpaceX’s most formidable 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 take a look at in April 2023, SpaceX has tried eight extra built-in flights. Throughout three of these exams, the corporate made historical past by catching the huge Tremendous Heavy booster with “chopstick” arms hooked up to the launch tower.
The info means that SpaceX’s fast progress comes at a value. And whereas harm charges alone don’t present an entire image of the protection tradition at Starbase, they do supply a uncommon glimpse into the working situations of the world’s main house firm.
Breaking down Starbase numbers
OSHA makes use of a standardized security metric referred to as Whole Recordable Incident Charge (TRIR) to measure an organization’s security document and examine it to business friends, like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. The publicly obtainable knowledge has limitations. It doesn’t distinguish between minor accidents like stitches versus critical incidents comparable to amputations.
TechCrunch calculated the TRIR based mostly on that knowledge, which incorporates the overall variety of incidents and whole variety of hours labored by SpaceX staff 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 a complete. Its TRIR topped out at 4.27 accidents per 100 employees in 2024, when it employed a median of two,690 employees, based on the information 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 charge on this sector has fallen dramatically since 1994, dropping from 4.2 accidents per 100 employees to 0.7 injuries per 100 workers in 2023, based on historic knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS calculates these charges by 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 business, 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 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 amenities report decrease TRIR charges, although most nonetheless exceed the business 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, places of work in Sunnyvale, California, and launch websites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Area Pressure Base.
Former OSHA Chief of Employees Debbie Berkowitz informed TechCrunch by way of e mail that Starbase’s TRIR “is a crimson flag that there are critical questions of safety that must 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, significantly critical incidents like fatalities, and particularly for small corporations. A recent 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 shops including Reuters have uncovered a whole lot 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 employees in 2023 and 4.8 accidents in 2022. But it surely 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 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 companies to the Worldwide Area Station include explicit clauses that enable the company to take motion within the case of a significant breach of security, comparable to a fatality or a “willful” or “repeat” OSHA violation.
Whereas a persistently excessive TRIR charge could be proof of a security downside, it isn’t an computerized set off for motion, and doesn’t fall under 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 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 automobiles 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.