SpaceX didn’t properly inspect crane before collapse at Starbase, OSHA says

SpaceX didn’t decently inspect a hydraulic crane that had precocious been repaired earlier it collapsed astatine the company’s Starbase, Texas installation past June, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

As a result, the national information bureau has deed SpaceX with 7 “serious” violations related to its investigation, which it opened 1 time aft the crane collapse. OSHA issued the maximum fiscal punishment it tin levy connected six of those “serious” violations, giving Elon Musk’s spaceflight institution a combined good of $115,850.

OSHA’s probe is inactive unfastened according to the agency’s website. It’s inactive unclear whether immoderate workers were harmed successful the accident. SpaceX is capable to contention the penalties; the institution did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

The punishment and violations travel arsenic SpaceX is acceptable to ramp up enactment astatine the Starbase facility, arsenic the institution races to fulfill President Donald Trump’s extremity of returning astronauts to the Moon by the extremity of his 2nd term. The institution has clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to execute arsenic galore arsenic 25 Starship launches successful Texas this year. At the aforesaid time, it is undergoing accelerated enlargement of the motorboat analyzable to conscionable Musk’s expansive ambitions of gathering thousands of Starship rockets per year.

SpaceX has had a agelong past of injuries astatine the South Texas motorboat complex. A 2023 Reuters study uncovered dozens of previously-unreported injuries — and 1 worker decease — that happened arsenic the installation was built up crossed the past decade. A TechCrunch investigation of OSHA information past twelvemonth showed SpaceX has a overmuch higher wounded complaint astatine the Starbase tract than astatine different facilities tally by the company, oregon those of its manufacture peers.

Accidents support happening, too. In December, an worker of a SpaceX subcontractor filed a suit against SpaceX aft helium was allegedly crushed by a ample metallic enactment dropped from a crane. OSHA is besides investigating that accident, arsenic TechCrunch archetypal reported.

The crane collapse astatine the halfway of the caller OSHA punishment happened connected June 24, 2025. SpaceX employees astatine a Starbase trial tract were cleaning up debris from a Starship detonation conscionable 4 days prior. Footage captured by LabPadre, which posts unrecorded streams of the Starbase site, showed a crane buckling nether the value of a ample portion of the exploded Starship.

According to the caller citations posted to OSHA’s website, 1 worker was using a Grove RT9150E crane to assistance the debris portion different utilized an excavator’s bucket to inspect it, successful hopes of determining the origin of the explosion.

That Grove crane had precocious been repaired, according to the citations, and returned to SpaceX “without the leader ensuring repairs met manufacturer’s criteria via an inspection by a qualified person.” It is not wide wherefore the crane was repaired, but different citation states a Grove RT9150E crane astatine the trial tract had a machine that would not commencement until “multiple attempts” were made.

OSHA claims SpaceX was either not performing oregon not documenting monthly inspections connected the Grove crane, and that it hadn’t been inspected “within the past 12 months.” SpaceX did not execute monthly inspections of the ligament enactment being utilized to determination debris either, according to OSHA. And OSHA claims rigging instrumentality utilized astatine the tract was missing manufacturer-prescribed markings that are expected to item a “safe moving load.”

As portion of its investigation, OSHA besides recovered that an worker had been operating a Tadano 90-ton crawler crane to determination debris astatine the trial tract with an expired certification from the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators.