After accepting the mission the mission will fail stating that the player was destroyed even though I have not left the dock yet.

Mission starts at Divinia k-3

ahahahahah that's a great bug

I just took a look at this under the editor; the only way this could have happened is if one of the students was killed in an empty sector before you left. This is possible, but highly unlikely. None of the missions are instanced, so a wayward pirate might have happened upon your students before you got there. This is the first I've heard of this happening in over 2 years since the mission has been out. I would try the mission again later this afternoon, and see if you can reach the students a little more quickly.

My PCC TRIPS missions have the same bug. Something raybondo did in that update to make manufacturing missions take from stations broke some missions.