I am just wondering, what are the uses of space stations?
Is it possible to build a military station? What about maintenance and deployment time?
Well, "space station" is not a term Aurora uses;* most people use it to mean a unit with no engines.
A "Structural Shell" has no armour but may be built by planetary industry at a colony with a Spaceport. A regular vessel (i.e. with at least 1 armour thickness) can be built with no engines (generally in order to get more space for other stuff).
Either type can be moved via tractor beam by a ship
with engines. If such a "space station" is at a colony, it can benefit like any other vessel from maintenace facilities, shore leave, a cargo-handling installation, etc.
People use "space stations" for all kinds of things: terraforming, orbital mining, sorium harvesting, orbital habitation around extreme bodies, anti-missile defense, weapon platforms. . . I suspect it won't be long before we see someone tug a 'bombardment base' along to help their ground invasion of an enemy colony.
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Military "space stations" require maintenance like any other military vessel, but if at a location with enough Maintenance Facilities will not put any time on their maint clock (and thus will not raise their failure chance). At a colony with enough population or recreation modules, they won't accrue time on their deployment clock either.
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* EDIT: "Space Station" is an entry in the Hull dropdown tab in the Class Design window, but said entry has no effect on the mechanics. You can design a battleship or fast colony ship and call it a Space Station.
And as Noriad points out, Aurora uses it to refer to Strucutral Shells in the class design summary.
