The hatch is at the forward end of the ship. The shroud protecting the pressure vessel has a sensor array that is fed into the simulacrum in realtime. Log summaries are sent in batches at regular intervals through the ansible back to mission control as well. The ship's leasemind will log what it thinks are technosignatures (usually non random radio emissions), but false positives are not uncommon and mission control must wait for a confirmation from one of the missionaries before reporting that life has been found.

The ring encircling the ship is the main force projector array. It's used at the beginning of the journey to accelerate the ship to relativistic speed. It slows the ship down when entering a solar system. Landing is accomplished by projecting a force opposing the ship's velocity vector until the ship achieves zero ground speed, whereupon the force projector array is jettisoned and the ship plummets to the ground, deploying a parachute once the air gets thick enough and landing skids just before touchdown.

Reentry is rough, and since the healer has to be yeaned first in order to oversee the safe yeaning of the rest of the crew, she's usually coming out of suspension while the ship is landing.