Black Star Industries is not WIP. That was my mistake.
As for the population question. Why a station capable of housing so many Vekimen, when there are so few Vekimen in existence.
Vekimen breed like crazy at the worst of times. The population is going to start growing exponentially soon. Though this actually isn't the primary reason Khelena wanted it made.
Historically, the Vekimen spent about 1300 years Yamatai Years trapped on a 15km diameter space station. While at the beginning they had warships and the like to keep the station safe, over time those warships broke off due to a plethora of reasons. This left just the station, and a huge housing issue. Not only that, but the station was originally fitted for long range mining missions, so it was built to last several years without resupply. The fact that the Vekimen were able to survive so long I would accredit to their self made classification as a "Pioneer Species". They are tenacious, and cling to life rather tightly despite being immortal.
This station, the ODSF, is what Khelena thinks she would have preferred. A Station that is in all essence, a mega-city. This is not only a military instillation, but a bugout button ready to go. As I mentioned to Ametheliana last time I spoke to her about this, either over skype or in the thread I don't recall, the duration this station could go is an extraordinary undercut of what the Vekimen could actually push it too, given their approved historical timeline. Khelena knows the Vekimen are weak as a species. There are not many of them ((Right now)) and until she can rectify that properly, she is in a state of fear that someone will waltz along and try to kill her people. On the off chance she needs to escape the system again, she wants this to be capable of housing as many Vekimen as physically possible, while still being able to sustain itself in a variety of ways.
I would argue that given the capabilities of this station, it would be able to last far longer than 80 measly years without a refit if it were to find resources out in space.
That is the reason though. Sorry, thought I would throw in my thoughts on the refit cycle as well.
As for who is helping? The Gartagens are, last I checked. If nothing has changed, the Vekimen will be giving them exclusive mining rights to one of the planets in their system and in return they get all the assistance they need to build this station in an orderly time. Not only that, but in a recent conversation and agreement with USO, the Vekimen have handed over distribution of their weapons and firearms to the trade company working out of USO. This bring in a significant amount of money each month.
The Gartagens, as explained to me, while known for their warriors, are some of, if not the best natural engineering race in the setting. This is not including Neko engineers who are basically super computers. The Vekimen have the Sivaro's who are also extraordinarily intelligent who will be working in tandem with the Gartagens to make sure the Station is built primarily for Vekimen, but capable of comfortably housing other species, as explained in the article.