. For effectively using flight test data to extract drag coefficient, an optimal observer based on parameter estimation technique is proposed. The point mass dynamic equation is used to form the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) and the smoother (URTSS) for the estimation of a projectile’s flight states. The projectile flight states are then solved and utilized to extract the drag coefficient information using the observer techniques. The simulation verifies the feasibility of the method: with measurement noise, the accurate drag coefficient is obtained by using the smoother.