The data suggests that SpaceX\u2019s rapid progress comes at a cost. And while injury rates alone don\u2019t provide a complete picture of the safety culture at Starbase, they do offer a rare glimpse into the working conditions of the world\u2019s leading space company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Breaking down Starbase numbers<\/p>\n
OSHA uses a standardized safety metric called Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) to measure a company\u2019s safety record and compare it to industry peers, like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance. The publicly available data has limitations. It doesn\u2019t distinguish between minor injuries like stitches versus serious incidents such as amputations.\u00a0<\/p>\n TechCrunch calculated the TRIR based on that data, which includes the total number of incidents and total number of hours worked by SpaceX employees at each site.\u00a0<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco Starbase, which plays a central role in SpaceX CEO Elon Musk\u2019s mission to make life multi-planetary, is an outlier in the company and across the industry as a whole. Its TRIR topped out at 4.27 injuries per 100 workers in 2024, when it employed an average of 2,690 workers, according to the data submitted to OSHA. Injured Starbase employees were unable to perform their normal job duties for a total of 3,558 restricted-duty days, plus 656 lost-time days where injuries made them unable to work at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n Starbase is classified by the U.S. government as a space vehicle-manufacturing operation. The injury rate in this sector has fallen dramatically since 1994<\/a>, dropping from 4.2 injuries per 100 workers to 0.7 injuries per 100 workers in 2023<\/a>, according to historical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS calculates these rates through its annual company surveys, which asks for the same information found in OSHA\u2019s worker injury forms.) But despite major changes in safety processes across the industry, Starbase is closer to the rates of 30 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n The injury rate across all of SpaceX\u2019s manufacturing facilities \u2014 which includes an engine development and testing site in McGregor, Texas; a Starlink satellite-manufacturing complex in Bastrop, Texas; the Falcon rocket complex in Hawthorne, California; and another satellite-manufacturing site in Redmond, Washington \u2014 is 2.28.\u00a0<\/p>\n These other facilities report lower TRIR rates, though most still exceed the industry averages. For instance, 2024 data shows TRIR rates of 2.48 at McGregor, 3.49 at Bastrop, 1.43 at Hawthorne, 2.89 at Redmond. The 2024 TRIR for aerospace manufacturing as a whole is 1.6.\u00a0<\/p>\n SpaceX also operates several non-manufacturing sites, including barge operations off both coasts; offices in Sunnyvale, California; and launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force Base.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former OSHA chief of staff Debbie Berkowitz told TechCrunch via email that Starbase\u2019s TRIR \u201cis a red flag that there are serious safety issues that need to be addressed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n However, there is a debate among safety professionals about whether TRIR is the most reliable metric for assessing and predicting injury rates, particularly serious incidents like fatalities, and especially for small companies. A recent paper<\/a> on TRIR questioned its statistical validity and advocated that organizations use alternative measures of safety performance instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the 14 OSHA inspections at SpaceX facilities over the past four years, six involved accidents and injuries at Starbase. That includes a partial finger amputation in 2021 and a crane collapse in June 2025. The latter inspection is still ongoing. Investigations by other news outlets, including Reuters<\/a>, have uncovered hundreds of previously unreported worker injuries, including crushed limbs and one fatality.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2024 injury rate at Starbase marks an improvement to that of the prior year, which topped out at 5.9 injuries per 100 workers in 2023 and 4.8 injuries in 2022. But it still leads among SpaceX\u2019s land-based facilities and is second overall only to its West Coast booster recovery operations, which has a TRIR of 7.6.\u00a0<\/p>\n OSHA confirmed TechCrunch\u2019s calculation of Starbase\u2019s TRIR over email, but otherwise did not respond to questions regarding that location\u2019s injury rate. SpaceX did not respond to request for comment. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s stake <\/p>\n NASA has a major stake in Starship\u2019s development. The agency is counting on using the rocket to return humans to the moon before the end of this decade, and it is paying more than $4 billion<\/a> to SpaceX for two crewed Starship flights to the lunar surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Starbase](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/starbasec-city-spacex.jpg\")
Starbase City, an unincorporated town in Texas. Image Credits:<\/strong>SpaceX<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"nasa-spacex-crew-2](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/nasa-spacex-crew-2-return.jpg\")
NASA Crew-2 Mission in 2021 returns to Earth. Image Credits:<\/strong>SpaceX under a CC BY NC 2.0 license.<\/p>\n