As SpaceX prepares to launch Starship V3 for the first time, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death of a worker at its Starbase company town outside Brownsville, Texas.
OSHA confirmed the investigation on Monday, the San Antonio Express-News reports. The Brownsville Fire Department was dispatched to Starbase at 4:17 a.m. CT on Friday, but they stood down seven minutes later after being advised that SpaceX’s emergency medical services were handling the situation, Chief Jarrett Sheldon told the publication. Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Treviño reportedly said his department assisted and that OSHA has since taken over the investigation.
Local authorities have not yet identified the victim or shared details of the fatal incident, but sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Post the person was a contractor helping to develop the Starbase complex and said they died after a fall. Images and videos of the Gigabay building, captured via live camera footage and posted on X, show the flashing lights of emergency vehicles around 4:17 a.m. CT.
The rumblings about a death at Starbase of an employee under a contractor last Friday morning appear to be true. 4:16AM, about 2 hours before the already claimed time, I spotted an ambulance w/ emergency lights. All the cranes working on the gigabay stopped work shortly before… pic.twitter.com/h6X3Mh7wpT
— TheSpaceEngineer (@mcrs987) May 17, 2026
SpaceX did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Questionable safety at SpaceX
This is far from the first workplace incident to occur at Starbase. In January, a contractor sued SpaceX for negligence, claiming he was struck by a piece of falling debris while working in an elevator shaft at the site in April 2024.
SpaceX has also been sued over incidents at its other facilities, including its manufacturing and testing sites in Hawthorne, California, and McGregor, Texas. At Hawthorne, a mishap during a Raptor V2 pressure engine test in January 2022 allegedly left an integration technician in a coma. Two years later, his wife filed a negligence lawsuit. Just last week, a tanker truck driver sued SpaceX after allegedly being “doused in liquid methane” while offloading fuel at the McGregor site in June 2024.
This is a small sample of numerous accidents that have taken place across SpaceX’s facilities. A 2023 Reuters investigation documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at the company, including crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds, and one death.
Employees are more likely to be injured at Starbase than any of the company’s other manufacturing sites, according to 2024 OSHA data reviewed by TechCrunch. That year, the company town logged injury rates nearly six times higher than the average for comparable space vehicle-manufacturing facilities and nearly three times higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole, TechCrunch reported.
Starship V3 launch delayed
Last week, SpaceX was planning to launch Starship V3, the latest and greatest iteration of its super heavy-lift rocket, from Starbase no earlier than Tuesday. On Sunday, the company pushed the launch to Wednesday, then bumped it back to Thursday on Wednesday evening.
SpaceX has not provided an explanation for the delays, so it’s unclear whether they could be related to Friday’s death. Regardless, the timing of this incident could be highly consequential for SpaceX as the company faces renewed scrutiny over its safety practices ahead of its most important launch yet and its blockbuster public offering.
