On Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organisation, Isro, asked researchers to use the fourth stage of its workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to find ways to dock a robotic arm with the spacecraft, just two days after it said it was looking to build a space station within a decade. The significance is that the fourth stage of the vehicle can be used for the experiments that will be conducted in the space station.

If successful in building its own space station, India will be the fourth country, after Russia, the US, and China, to set up a space station. In recent years, ...