A worker died Friday at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) opened an investigation.
He San Antonio Express-News reported Monday that the unidentified victim died around 4:17 a.m. local time on May 15, citing OSHA and local officials. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the county sheriff confirmed to the media that a worker died. OSHA confirmed to TechCrunch that it is investigating the apparent accident.
Representatives from nearby Brownsville police and fire departments did not respond to requests for comment. SpaceX and the newly incorporated city of Starbase did not respond to requests for comment.
The circumstances of the worker’s death are not immediately clear. OSHA told TechCrunch that it will not release any more information until its investigation is complete, which could take months.
The death comes just days before the planned first launch of SpaceX’s upgraded Starship rocket. Elon Musk’s spaceflight company will also reportedly release the detailed prospectus for its initial public offering this week, which is expected to be the largest in its history when that transaction takes place next month.
SpaceX has long dealt with worker safety issues at its Starbase site, which handles Starship prototype launches and is an active construction zone.
In 2025, TechCrunch analyzed OSHA data and determined that the Texas launch site had an injury rate that far exceeded that of industry rivals and was the most dangerous of SpaceX’s workplaces. A 2023 reuters investigation uncovered dozens of previously unreported injuries and the death of a worker in 2014 at the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas.
In January, OSHA charged SpaceX with seven “serious” safety violations for, among other things, failing to properly inspect a crane before it collapsed at Starbase last June. The security agency imposed SpaceX the maximum financial penalty for six of those seven violations, for a total of $115,850. SpaceX is challenging those sanctions, federal records show.
The company has been hit by multiple lawsuits related to injuries sustained at Starbase in recent years. In December, an employee of one of SpaceX’s subcontractors filed a lawsuit after being crushed by a large metal support dropped from a crane. The worker, Eduardo Cavazos, suffered a broken hip, knee and tibia, and OSHA opened a “rapid response investigation,” as TechCrunch first reported in December.
OSHA has since closed that rapid response investigation without taking any punitive action, according to a TechCrunch public records request. And the lawsuit was recently dismissed because his employer, the subcontractor, provides workers’ compensation insurance that prevents the company from being sued, according to Cavazos’ attorney.
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