Despite the failure of the CRS-7 mission in June 2015, SES re-confirmed in September 2015 their decision to provide the first payload for the new rocket variant; however the launch was postponed until late 2015.

Eventually, after considering all options, SpaceX announced a change on 16 October 2015: Orbcomm's 11 Orbcomm-OG2 satellites would be the payload on the return-to-flight mission of the redesigned rocket instead