I seam to be confused about the survey planet thing. Sometimes I think I have not clicked correctly or something, and I can not seam to see any visual feeback of this task being started, only the result of it.

Is there something I am missing?"

You should be seeing a visual and audio feedback when giving orders. A msg box appears saying order received: 'survey' on the task force pane that appears and slowly fades.



You can also hover over the task force you ordered and it's current order is displaying in a pane.