Three days after the failed February 2009 launch, the OCO science team sent NASA headquarters a proposal to build and launch an OCO copy by late 2011. On 1 February 2010, the FY 2011 NASA budget request did include $170 million for NASA to develop and fly a replacement for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory: OCO-2.
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 launch of the Glory satellite took place on 4 March 2011 and ended in failure, like OCO. Then, in February 2012 both NASA and Orbital Sciences came to an agreement to terminate the launch contract.
OCO-2 was initially scheduled for launch on 1 July 2014 at 09:56 UTC aboard a Delta II rocket, though that launch was scrubbed at 46 seconds on the countdown clock due to a faulty valve on the water suppression system that is used to flow water on the launch pad to dampen the acoustic energy during launch. The rocket launched 2 July at the same time.