Injury rates at SpaceX facilities continued to exceed the industry average in 2023. Reuters reported this referring to the safety data provided by the company to US regulators.

Last year’s data released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also shows that at some SpaceX facilities, the injury rate was worse than in 2022.

For example, at the Brownsville facility in Texas, SpaceX reported 5.9 injuries per 100 employees in 2023. At the end of 2022, 4.8 injuries were recorded here. The average rate in the space industry is 0.8 injuries.

Safety experts say the high injury rate should be a concern for SpaceX customers, including NASA. The federal space program has been relying more and more on SpaceX in recent years and has paid the company at least $11.8 billion for various contracts as of 2022.

“NASA should be concerned about the quality of work,” said David Michaels, a former OSHA administrator who is now a professor at George Washington University.

He also added that high injury rates can be “an indicator of poor production quality.”

The high rate of injuries at the company last year was the subject of a Reuters investigation that revealed at least 600 previously unreported injuries to SpaceX employees. These injuries resulted in broken limbs, amputations, serious head injuries, and one fatality.

Earlier it was reported that US labor officials fined Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $3600. This happened after an accident at the company’s site in Washington state.