The slightly perplexed looks come from trying to understand what the Cebreros mimic diagram was showing us about the downlink signal – something which cannot be trained for in simulation, since we don’t use the real stations. In the end, we concluded that everything was nominal 😉

VEX flight control team at ESOC on 20 May 2014, 06:15 am. Almost all of the team came in to see how the spacecraft was looking following its first pericentre passage in braking mode.

VEX flight control team at ESOC on 20 May 2014, 06:15 am. Almost all of the team came in to see how the spacecraft was looking following its first pericentre passage in braking mode. Credit: ESA