Haha, you certainly are not the first to intuitively type "exit" when leaving database search :D
I have to agree the information provided on the game's objective is not the best with some getting the idea immediately and some requiring more details. As for the story the the initial info is "They departed station Theta at time 1150" and you can just "search departures station=Theta time=1150" and it's the one with alert status and a note. After that you can just search using the spacecraft's name. Hope that helps!