SpaceX’s Starship rocket launched during its seventh test flight from Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday. Credit... 7:23 p.m. ET 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. Starship is the rocket that Elon Musk, the company’s founder, says will take people to Mars someday. NASA is also paying SpaceX to develop a version of the vehicle to return American astronauts to the moon. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access.