posted on Feb, 24 2006 @ 02:58 AM
The X-43 was so small, it couldnt be filmed clearly from a chase plane. After booster seperation, it was also flying faster than any chase plane, so
it was out of sight real fast.
Seperation of the booster and X-43 vehicle
was very much visible, from a distance, I have seen this myself, I saw both flight test live, via
NASA TV.
As Nacnud pointed out, air peed and other data can be captured by radar, NASA has very advanced radar tracking equipment. They also tracked it
visually:
Infrared image of the world-record Mach 6.8 flight of the second X-43A scramjet on March 27, 2004. U.S. Army.
Data of the flight was send to a Navy P-3 support aircraft, via a telemetry stream.