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A crane collapsed in the South Texas rocket of SpaceX this week, and the newly formed city of the company will not say if someone has been injured.
On June 23, a crane used to clean the debris of the last explosion of SpaceX rocket collapsed in the launch complex of the company. Images of the accident were Captured by Lab PadreOne of the content creators that films and photographs the site regularly. But it was filmed from afar, which makes it impossible to say if someone was injured or in danger.
SpaceX did not publicly recognize the collapse and did not respond to the request for comments from Techcrunch. It is not surprising; While the company publishes details on the misadventures of space flights, as when its Starship rockets explode, it is also tight.
But the installation of SpaceX is now part of a newly incorporated city called Starbase, Texas, and this accident occurred inside its borders. And after one of the starship rockets exploded on a test stand Last week, Starbase officials Make a short post on X on this subject.
There was no message on the collapse of the crane, and the city ignored direct calls for information. Techcrunch contacted the main email address of the Starbase media, its mayor, its two commissioners, its city administrator and his clerk this week. None responded to several requests for information on the accident.
The collapse is one of the first tests to know if Starbase City has an appetite (and a will) for transparency while being managed by a SpaceX frame, and acting as a house for the company and more than 200 of its employees. Starbase is also financially liable to the Elon Musk space flight company: just this week, the city finalized A loan of $ 1.5 million in SpaceX to finance city operations until September 2025.
The idea of making a city called Starbase was the first Floated by musk in 2021. But it was not until May this year that he has officially become a city. Its citizens – mainly SpaceX employees – voted massively to incorporate. SpaceX vice-president of “Texas Test and Launch”, Bobby Peden, has become mayor. The main director of the company in terms of environment, health and security Jordan Buss has become a commissioner. The other commissioner, Jenna Petrzelka, worked at SpaceX for years.
These officials have been busy shaping the new city in recent weeks. The city sent a notice At the end of May to residents of a newly proposed mixed use district that they can “lose the right to continue to use” their property. The city too started to erect the doors on the demand of SpaceX which limit access to the city, citing security problems. Buss declared in a meeting that Starbase would grant access to foreigners “if he needed to be in the city” and to provide “access codes” to the ambulances, the firefighters and the police, according to the Valley Central.
It is not clear if these types of emergency services were necessary Tuesday when the crane collapsed. The Sheriff’s Department of the County Cameron told Techcrunch that he had received no Starbase call at the time of the accident. Officials of local fires in the neighboring city of Brownsville and the County of Cameron did not respond to requests for comments.
All we know about collapse – in addition to seeing it happen – is that the administration of safety and health at work (OSHA) opened an investigationAccording to CNBC.
SpaceX has a problem Workers’ safety history. But OSHA surveys take time, and the agency has been reduced by the cuts of the DOGE project of Musk. Musk companies also have very constructive relationships with the OSHA. In 2019, Tesla refused to let the OSHA inspectors enter its factory in NevadaEven when these inspectors returned with a sheriff deputy and a mandate signed by the judge.
