Does NASA use chase planes during shuttle landings?
The first few shuttle flights had chase airplanes (T-38’s)to photograph the tiles and provide backup airspeed and altitude information. This has not been done since 1982. What you sometimes see in shuttle landing videos nowadays is the NASA G-2 Shuttle Training Aircraft, which is flown by an astronaut and provides weather and wind information for the shuttle prior to the entry. Sometimes it stays in the air during the landing and flies overhead after the shuttle is on the runway.
