SpaceX employees are more likely to be injured while working in Starbase than any other production facilities, according to the security records of employees of a company checked by Techcrunch.
Starbase, a decentralized launch and manufacturing site, which recently contained its own Texas city, logged in the number of injuries almost 6x higher than the average of comparable space vehicles and nearly 3x higher than in the year 2024, occupational safety and occupational health data (OSHA). This oversized degree of damage has continued since 2019, when SpaceX began to share the sharing of Starbase disability data with the federal regulatory authority.
Starbase is the most ambitious program for SpaceX: a fully reusable, very heavy Lift rocket called Starship. The company has changed at Breakneck to bring the Starship Online application to launch StarLink Internet satellites and other payloads.
Since April 2023, SpaceX has been trying to have eight extra integrated flights in Starship’s first orbit in April 2023. During these three tests, the company made history of a massive very heavy booster vaccination with “chopstick” stems attached to the launch tower.
The information suggests that the rapid progress of SpaceX is at the expense. And while the degree of injury alone does not provide a perfect picture of Starbase’s safety culture, they provide a rare review of the world’s leading space company working conditions.
Breakting Starbase numbers
OSHA uses a standardized security meter, called Total Recortable (TRIR) to measure and compare it with peers in the field, such as Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. There are restrictions on the publicly available information. It does not distinguish minor injuries, such as stitches compared to serious cases such as amputations.
Techcrunch calculated TRIR based on this information, which includes the total number of cases and the total number of hours passed by spaceX employees on each site.
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Starbase, who plays a central role in SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk, is to make life multi -planetary is outside the company and in the industry as a whole. Its trir exceeded 4.27 injuries per 100 employees in 2024, whereas according to information provided to OSHA, it employed an average of 2,690 employees. The injured Starbase workers were unable to perform a total of 3,558 of their normal job on the days of the limited day, plus 656, when the injuries made them work at all.
The US government classifies Starbase as a manufacturing operation for space vehicles. The rate of injury in this field has fallen dramatically Since 1994dropping from 4.2 injuries to 100 employees 0.7 injuries per 100 employees in 2023According to the historical information of the Work Statistics Service. (BLS calculates these prices through its annual business surveys, which requests the same information on OSHA employees’ disability forms.) But despite major changes in industrial safety processes, Starbase is closer to 30 years ago.
Injury in all SpaceX production facilities – which includes engine development and testing in McGregor, Texas; Starlink satellite manufacturing complex in Bastrop, Texas; Falcon rocket complex in Hawthorne, California; and another Satellite manufacturing location in Redmond, Washington-on 2.28.
These other facilities report lower TRIR prices, although most still exceed industry averages. For example, 2024 data shows that TRIR speeds are 2.48 McGregor, 3.49 Bastrop, 1.43 in Hawthorne, 2.89 in Redmond. The 2024 trir for the entire aviation industry is 1.6.
SpaceX also has several non-manufacturing sites, including the operation of the barge outside both coasts; offices in Sunnyvale, California; and start -up places at the Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Base.
Former OSHA’s Director of Human Resources Debbie Berkowitz told Techcrunch by email that Starbase’s trir “is a red flag that there are serious security issues that must be addressed”.
However, there is a debate among safety professionals as to whether Trir is the most reliable measure of injury assessment and prediction, especially in serious events such as deaths, and especially for small companies. Recent paper Trir questioned his statistical qualifications and defended that organizations, on the other hand, use alternative safety performance.
A 14 OSHA inspection of the Spacex rooms over the last four years, six participated in Starbase’s accidents and injuries. It includes a partial finger amputation in 2021 and a crane collapse in June 2025. The latter inspection will continue. Studies of other news agencies, including Reutershave revealed hundreds of previously unreported workers’ injuries, including crushed limbs and one death.
In 2024, the degree of damage in the Starbase area will improve the previous year, which exceeded 5.9 injuries per 100 employees in 2023 and 4.8 injuries in 2022. But it will continue to lead to SpaceX Earth’s premises and is second to second to 7.6 on the West Coast’s powerful recovery operations.
OSHA confirmed Techcrunch’s calculation of Starbase’s TRIR by email, but otherwise did not answer questions about the amount of the injury in question. Spacex did not respond to the request for comment.
NASA’s contribution
NASA has a significant role in the development of Starship. The Agency relies on using a rocket to return people to the moon before the end of this decade and costs more than $ 4 billion to SpaceX from two crew star services to Lunar’s surface.
Both the commercial crew services of the Starship Lander and SpaceX agreement to the international space station contain certain clauses that allow the agency to take action on a major security offense, such as in death or in a “deliberate” or “repeated” OSHA violation.
While constantly high TRIR speed may be evidence of a safety problem, it is not an automatic trigger or falling by definition in their contracts “great breach of security”.
“NASA is often interacted with his partners, including spacex, to ensure safety from the point of view of the safety of the operation and remains regularly in connection with the company during normal contract management,” the NASA spokesman told Techcrunch in response to the company’s TRIR questions. “Security is of paramount importance to the success of NASA’s mission. The Agency continues to cooperate with all our commercial partners to build and maintain a healthy safety culture.”
Starbase continues to lead vehicles in the operation of vehicles: at the ULA manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama, Trir is 1.12 injuries per 100 employees; Blue Origin’s Rocket Park on the coast of Florida, speed is 1.09.
