SpaceX technician suffered fractured skull and put in coma after being struck during rocket test, report says

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule launches from Pad-39A on the Crew 5 mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US on Oct 5, 2022. The employee was hit by the fuel controller cover, which had become dislodged from the controller module, the report states. He suffered a skull fracture and head trauma and was in a coma for two months. — Reuters

A SpaceX employee was hospitalised for a fractured skull and put in a coma for two months after performing a check on a rocket engine and getting hit in the head at the company’s facility in Hawthorne, California, according to a report.

On Jan 18, an integration technician was “performing pneumatic pressure checks on a Raptor V2 Engine”, according to a report from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The final step 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 said.