But consider:
Huygens landed on Titan all by itself -- mission control found out later if it worked, after setting it up.
Likewise the Pluto high-speed near encounter by New Horizons. Took months to send back what it collected.
Perseverence, Ingenuity, and Curiosity are AI robots navigating alien terrain with minimal human interaction.
All these machines ALSO have low-level failsafes of the type you describe. That skill never went away.