Biodome kit

From Starport: Galactic Empires

Biodome Kits are how colonies are started. You can purchase a biodome kit at a StarBase Shipyards. The kit will go into one of your ship's 8 hardware bays, which are viewable as the 8 boxes on the left-hand side of the console display.

To deploy a Biodome kit and thus found a colony, go to a planet outside of U.N.-Controlled Space and enter that planet. Then find the spot on the planet's surface where you would like to start the colony. Click the biodome kit in your hardware slots to deploy it. Biodomes take up a fair amount of space, so you may have to try a few times to find a valid placement location for your colony.