The satellite executes autonomously the mission timeline that has been uplinked during the DTCP. The observational data is stored on board, and downlinked to the New Norcia Ground Station (which is backed-up by the Cebreros Ground Station) during the next DTCP. During this period, which lasts approximately 3 hours, the status of the satellite will be monitored and operational or emergency procedures will be applied, when necessary. In addition, the mission timeline with the commands to be executed during the next OD will be uplinked. This though is a rolling process. In case a DTCP communications linkage with the ground station is missed the satellite must always have two operational days of observations stored in the onboard solid-state memory. This means that the commands to be executed are always added to the end of the onboard file so that, in the case of a communications failure, there will always be sufficient commands on board to last until the end of the DTCP of the following OD.

It takes several weeks to complete the planning of an OD, from the compilation of all the inputs needed, to the building of the mission timeline by the MOC. Therefore if there are special scheduling requests they should be sent via Helpdesk two months in advance in order to be able to apply them at due time. Due to the complexity of the process, two to three weeks in advance, a draft schedule will be at user's disposal for him to be aware of the imminent execution of his observations and to be able to request last chance changes in view of availability of recent data. Only in special circumstances will changes be authorised on a shorter timescale.

The downlinked satellite telemetry ise transferred from the ground station to the MOC, where it is consolidated and be made available to the HSC. The HSC retrieves the consolidated telemetry and auxiliary data from the MOC automatically, and ingests them in the HSC database, propagating the data to the Instrument Control Centres for each of the three instruments.