When the Russo kids go to Mars, Max goes over to a non-functioning NASA rover and notices something amiss on it and fixes it. Back on Earth, NASA monitors notice the fix immediately. However, any sort of transmission from Mars to Earth would take 5 to 22 minutes to arrive.
When Max fixes the Mars Rover, it immediately starts to move around. However, when Houston sends a command to the Rover, it can take as much as 40 minutes to receive the signal.