It’s not a big deal, just a mild annoyance and yet another show of FatShark’s oft lack of foresight.
Depending on your teammates, you can finish this one in 2-3 missions.
Or you might get no progress at all, because there is nobody to be saved.
Imo it is a non issue.
Especially considering that this penance can be done at any difficulty.
For anyone who starts the game after the penance was implemented, your issue will not exist.
For anyone who already plays at a higher difficulty, your “issue” is to be expected.
What you dislike here, is a general „problem“ with any penances that have dependencies.
Unless they have you do the exact same thing, but for different amounts of times, there is basically no way to make sure, that you complete penances in the intended order.