http://www.facebook.com/orbiterfilmmaker Facebook. Advances, pictures, details, comments. The Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar ("Dynamic Soarer") was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites. The program ran from 24 October 1957 to 10 December 1963. Despite cancellation of the X-20, the affiliated research on spaceplanes influenced the much larger Space Shuttle. The final design also used delta wings for controlled landings. The later, and much smaller Soviet BOR-4 was closer in design philosophy to the Dyna-Soar, while NASA's Martin X-23 PRIME and Martin Marietta X-24A/HL-10 research aircraft also explored aspects of sub-orbital and space flight. Research into a spaceplane was realized much later, in other reusable spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle, which had its first orbital flight in 1981, and, more recently, the Boeing X-40 and X-37B spacecraft.