Also having the same issue. In my case, I believe it might be because of my very isolated start. I was spawned on the tip of a galactic arm, with only one other system within (pre-upgrade) wormhole range. The quest tagged the only other system in range, but I had already surveyed it.
(This may also relate to a bug that occurred with the pirate spawning event later on. This was after I'd researched the wormhole upgrade and started to explore more distant systems. The standard pirate event played, but the name of the pirate nation was listed as "", and as far as I could tell, no pirates actually spawned anywhere I could locate.)