In brief: Elon Musk's SpaceX is being sued by the wife of a company technician whose skull was fractured during a rocket engine malfunction in 2022. More than two years after the incident, Francisco Cabada remains in a coma.
Cabada was performing pressure testing checks on the Raptor V2 engine at SpaceX's Hawthorne, California site on January 18, 2022, when a fuel-controller assembly cover broke off. The part struck Cabada on the head, fracturing his skull.
An accident investigation summary from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirms that during the incident, the final step in the pressure check operation, venting, was done for the first time using an automated program as opposed to the normal manual method that had been used in previous operations.
The report adds that the controller cover had sheared at the vertical to horizontal beveled seam, detaching the cover face from the assembly.
Cabada's wife, Ydy, filed a negligence lawsuit in a state court in Los Angeles, California, last week on behalf of her husband, writes Reuters. He remains in a coma.
Much like Musk's other big company, Tesla, SpaceX has faced accusations of making its work environment an unsafe one as its race to colonize Mars picks up pace.
A Reuters investigation that was published last year found that there had been at least 600 previously unreported injuries at SpaceX since 2014. Many of these were serious or disabling. They included crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds, and even one death.
Many current and former employees said the injuries were often the result of under-trained and overtired staff skipping basic training as they rush to meet Musk's time demands, part of the "hardcore" work culture he promotes at his firms, including his former Twitter site, X. SpaceX workers also claimed that Musk discouraged them from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.
The average injury rate for SpaceX's California site was 1.8 per 100 workers. Three of its facilities have a higher rate than the space industry's standard of 0.8.
Musk's demanding expectations were evident last week when he told Tesla workers they would be sleeping on the factory floor when work starts on the new $25,000 EV next year. There have been numerous reports of accidents at the Texas Gigafactory, including one engineer who suffered serious injuries when an autonomous machine at the plant sank its metal claws into his back and arm.