Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is facing a negligence lawsuit filed by the wife of a former employee of the company, whose skull was fractured during a malfunction that occurred while working on a rocket engine in 2022.
The injury of the employee, Francisco Cabada, was revealed as part of an in-depth investigation by the news agency "Reuters" in late 2023 , in which it was discovered that at least 600 worker injuries at SpaceX were underreported or not reported at all.
Among the injuries - crushed limbs, amputations, electrocution, head and eye injuries and even one death.
One of Starship's trial launches.
Archive // Photo: SpaceX
Kabada himself was injured when part of the Raptor V2 engine broke off during pressure testing at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California.
The part entered Kabada's head and, as mentioned, broke his skull.
According to former employees familiar with the accident, this incident illustrated the systemic problems that have existed in the company for a long time.
The person who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kabada, who has been in a coma for over two years, is his wife, who filed the lawsuit about a week ago in the court in Los Angeles.
It should be noted that up to this point there was no knowledge of any intention to sue the company for that accident.
Starship on its second launch, November 2023, photo: E.P
According to sources, senior managers at the Hawthorne job site were repeatedly warned of the dangers inherent in engine development, including inadequate staff training and substandard component testing.
According to the same sources, the part that failed and injured the employee had a defect that was discovered, but not repaired, before the accident.
SpaceX's Raptor engines are the ones that drive Starship in all its parts - the company's next-generation launcher designed to send equipment and people into space.
According to the current plan, the American space agency will use the rocket as part of the "Artemis" missions in the coming decade, which are intended to land humans on the moon.
Elon Musk.
This is not the first time that claims have been made about problematic conduct in the companies he owns. Photo: Reuters
As a reminder, it was recently reported that the flagship programs of the American Space Agency for the coming years - "Artemis" 2 and "Artemis" 3 - are going to be significantly delayed, due to a number of significant failures.
NASA has announced that Artemis 2 will be delayed until at least September 2025, while Artemis 3, the mission to land humans on the moon, will be delayed until at least 2026.
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