The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket failed on Thursday as the vehicle’s upper stage experienced a catastrophic malfunction as it headed upward to space.

SpaceX was able to achieve some success by repeating the feat of catching the gargantuan Super Heavy booster back at the launchpad.

But then data indicated that some of the engines on an upgraded, longer version of the upper stage shut down prematurely. About 8.5 minutes after launch, communications between the ground and the upper-stage vehicle, which is known as Starship, were cut off.

“We can confirm that we did lose the ship,” said Kate Tice, one of the hosts of SpaceX’s video stream of the launch.

Videos posted on the social media site X appeared to show debris raining down from the sky over the Caribbean, likely parts of a disintegrated rocket.

In his own post on X, Mr. Musk shared video footage of the debris and wrote “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”

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