You need a level 20 university to build Space Station Lab A.  Lab A is required for Lab B, which is required for Lab C with is required for Lab D.  You must build the lab complex in a 2x2 grid like so:

SS Lab A	SS Lab B
SS Lab D	SS Lab C

The lowest level of all four lab buildings is the highest level module plan that the lab complex is allowed to build.

You need a Space Station Lab to build SS plans. Only approved space station modules can be built on space stations. Nothing else. If it can't be built at the Space Station Lab, then it can't be built on a space station.

You will need to build plan for each level of module you wish to upgrade to.  For example if you have a starting Space Station it will have a Level 1 (L1) Station Command Center (SCC).  If you wish to have a L5 SCC you will need to build L2, L3, L4, and L5 SCC Plans at this Lab, ship them to the station and upgrade the SCC four times before you have a L5 SCC.

Each module plan cost the same amount of food/ore/water/energy.  You must have at least 1% of the ore needed of each type of ore.  For example if a module plan costs 100 food, 100 ore, 100 water, & 100 energy you would need 1 of each of the 20 ores and 80 more ore of any type.

Playing Tips:

• Find Rainbow Asteroids.  Those provide all the different ore types in sufficient quantities for building plans in the lab.
• You can only add 1 plan at a time to the SSLab to build.  Build times get to be long very fast for the SSLab a single level 9 plan can take a day to build.  A level 11 plan can take a week while a level 1 might take 25 minutes.
• Have multiple SSLabs to be able to build plans for your station faster, the long build times get to be killer.
• Build lots of Warehouse plans.  Each time the Space Station Command Center goes up a level you can add 3 more new Warehouses to your station.  Resource storage on a Space Station is very critical you'll always be short plans for these.
• Space station plans are expensive to build.
• There's not a lot of point in upgrading your SSlab past level 23.  The plans at that point get to be too expensive to build.
• Plans from levels 24 and 25 are meant to be obtained from the Mission Command.  Most missions require 2 plans of the previous level so the level 24 missions usually require 2 level 23 plans.
• Space Stations were designed to be run by an alliance and not a single player, so it's helpful to get the alliance as a whole to produce plans.