The Cutter left Terminus with a smooth push from the gravity beam, only really noticeable because of all the screens showing the scenery outside the ship.
There were only a few transparent portholes, and they had all been taken up with professional camera equipment, so everyone else was watching the screens as the atmosphere of the planet approached, starting from the dark side of the planet and passing across the light side until they reached the dark again, just past the line that marked the sunrise.
If the professional footage turned out half as well as the fixed cameras, they were in for a treat when they edited all three ships' worth of footage.