The original spacecraft was lost in a launch failure on 24 February 2009, when the payload fairing of the Taurus rocket which was carrying it failed to separate during ascent.

[7][8] The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3, a stand-alone payload built from the spare OCO-2 flight instrument, was installed on the International Space Station's Kibō Exposed Facility in May 2019.

[9] OCO's measurements are designed to be accurate enough to show for the first time the geographic distribution of carbon dioxide sources and sinks on a regional scale.

[10] The data is planned to improve the understanding of the global carbon cycle, the natural processes and human activities that influence the abundance and distribution of the greenhouse gas.

This improved understanding is expected to enable more reliable forecasts of future changes in the abundance and distribution of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the effect that these changes may have on Earth's climate.

[11] During its two-year mission, OCO will fly in a near polar orbit which enables the instrument to observe most of Earth's surface at least once every sixteen days.

The satellite will carry a single instrument designed to make the most precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide ever made from space.

The spectrometers will make simultaneous measurements of the carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen absorption of sunlight reflected off the same location on Earth's surface when viewed in the near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, invisible to the human eye.

Fairings are a standard component of expendable launch vehicles, and are always jettisoned as soon as possible after a rocket has climbed high enough for heating from air friction to no longer risk damaging the payload.

[21] NASA, in 2010, initially selected Orbital Sciences for launching the replacement in February 2013 on a Taurus XL 3110 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The efforts of the DOJ, recently made public, resulted in the resolution of criminal charges and alleged civil claims against SPI, and its agreement to pay $46 million to the U.S. government and other commercial customers.

The Taurus T8 and T9 missions both reentered earth's atmosphere resulting in break-up and/or burnup of the rocket and satellite, and any surviving pieces would have been dispersed in the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica.

Initiation of the ordnance causes the ligament of the frangible joint extrusion to fracture, allowing the two payload fairing halves to be separated and subsequently jettisoned from the Taurus rocket.

The T8 and T9 frangible joint extrusions were manufactured by Sapa Profiles, Inc. (SPI) in its Technical Dynamics Aluminum (TDA) plant, in Portland, Oregon.