Well I figured it out for the most part; not just ANY debris field will do, I needed to cycle through targets until I found a specific waypoint/marker, and travel close enough to IT to trigger Quest Step 2, which was the actual iron ore mining. I still got killed but at least I was killed while in the actual right area, which is a start.
So far this game seems like it could be a lot of fun. Is there any here for a joystick? It appears combat is more typical "stand and shoot" but perhaps exploring and whatnot could benefit from my x52...