system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How did NASA and/or spaceX control the landing of robots like Opportunity and Curiosity on Mars when the signal need over 3 minutes to arrive?

I assume they controlled something since lots of people were on the computer when they landed. Was it all just automatic?

It's like gaming with 180 000 ms of ping. F

Same goes for general space exploration. Do scientists here on earth have to wait 2\*distance/(light speed) to see their effect on the craft when they send a command? Maybe it's programmed like:

  
if (passed saturn) {

turn around and take picture of big planet

}
gpt
They didn't control it.  What they did was preprogram it to do a sequence of events timed down to the milli or nano second.   That's one of the reasons why we lost the polar orbiter.  The calculations were done in the wrong units (lockheed martin provided specifications in imperial, nasa needed metric). As a result, and nasa is currently not sure which, it either slammed into the atmosphere and disintegrated (likely) or slammed into the atmosphere and skipped off into an unpredictable orbit (not likely).  

As an aside, nasa actually developed a technology called delayed/disruption tolerant switching - a technology where a satellite (switch in network speak) will hold information indefinitely until it has confirmed the next satellite (switch) has entered range and is communicating.   This is much different than internet switching where each switch immediately sends it's info upon receipt.