The firm has been working for almost three months to rise above the unsuccessful seventh CRS mission (under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program) where a strut in a Falcon 9's upper stage failed, which resulted in the complete loss of the rocket and its payload of the Dragon spacecraft. 

At the time of the accident, the booster was 139 seconds into its flight – and SpaceX was preparing to upgrade the Falcon 9 from the v1.1 to the v1.2.

The company, founded in 2002, has maintained that it will return the Falcon 9 to flight later this year. Moreover, according to a report appearing on The Verge, SpaceX plans to launch the first of its Falcon Heavy boosters in the spring of next year (2016) from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.

It remains to be seen if either of these events will occur on the currently projected schedule.

At present, some 19 Falcon 9s have taken to the skies between 2010–2015, for a flight rate of slightly less than four launches per year.