X-20 Dyna-Soar

Mission Profile

X-20 Dyna-Soar was a US Air Force program to develop a crewed orbital spaceplane capable of reconnaissance, bombing, and satellite interception missions, launched atop a Titan rocket and recovered via unpowered glide landing like a conventional aircraft. Studied and partially developed from 1957 to 1963, the delta-winged vehicle would have been piloted by USAF astronauts for single-orbit missions at altitudes up to 150 km, returning to an airbase runway. The program was cancelled in December 1963 before any hardware flew, as Defense Secretary McNamara determined that unmanned reconnaissance satellites could perform the mission at lower cost. Dyna-Soar's aerodynamic and thermal protection research directly informed the design of the Space Shuttle orbiter.