Did you wait for the actions to reach the line where it says "now"? There's quite a bit of lag between scheduling an action and it being executed. This is a core mechanic of the game as the planet is a few light-hours away and thus signals takes a lot of time to travel between you and the rover.
It might also be that while reading the instructions, the rover's battery died. In that case the energy cell would read 0% and the system log would indicate "Energy cell critical. Shutting down". There's a restart button there as well.
Figuring out why the rover is not responding is an intended part of the game, but lacking a proper tutorial section, this doesn't work when it happens right at the start.