![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759340470_540_image-2.png\")
<\/p>\nTAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The Maldives is looking to raise $50 million for a space agency fund that aims to be the first of its kind for an island nation, targeting sovereign infrastructure and support for other developing states facing climate and security challenges.<\/p>\n
The Maldives Space Fund (MSF), based in the United Arab Emirates for regulatory oversight, was announced Oct. 1 during the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Close to $5 million in pre-commitments has already been secured from investors including family offices in the Middle East, according to Rajeeshwaran Moorthy, a space venture capitalist advising the Maldives\u2019 three-year-old space agency on the fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said various space agencies aligned with the Maldives mission are also lining up to help MSF hit its funding target by 2027, in addition to private capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re signaling to the world that the Maldives has aggressive ambitions for space,\u201d Moorthy told SpaceNews.<\/p>\n
The Maldives Space Research Organisation (MSRO), which employs fewer than 50 people, is already working on a ground station pilot and low Earth orbit satellites focused on marine conservation, illegal fishing detection and broader support for small island developing states (SIDS).<\/p>\n
The $50 million fund represents an initial phase designed to support MSRO\u2019s current priorities, while giving it the capacity to begin scaling through its first growth stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no point in just getting a ground station or satellites to solve individual problems,\u201d Moorthy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you need is a structured approach. The overall ambition of the fund is not just to tackle individual priorities for a space agency, but to the wider SIDS community, so there is a shared and equitable return for all island-based agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moorthy said the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), which has been supporting MSRO, has appointed him as an advisor as part of its partnership with the agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He is also an advisor for Axiom Space, the Texas-based commercial space station developer, and co-leads efforts at Australia\u2019s Swinburne University Space Venture Fund as an investment advisor.<\/p>\n
Strategic rationale<\/p>\n
The Maldives hopes to leverage its equatorial position to attract ground station and space situational awareness (SSA) investments, while its location along Indian Ocean shipping lanes makes it a natural hub for space-based maritime monitoring.<\/p>\n
Sovereign Earth observation capacity would also help the country track climate change, coral bleaching, coastal erosion and illegal fishing, generating data that could be shared with other SIDS.<\/p>\n
Although based in the UAE, a steering committee that includes MSRO, UNOOSA and an independent fiduciary would decide how to deploy MSF\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
MSF investments would be structured across three areas:<\/p>\n
Infrastructure (30-40%): ground stations, SSA services, feasibility work for an equatorial launch site.<\/p>\n
Applications and Analytics (30-40%): platforms for illegal fishing detection, climate monitoring, disaster response, scaled regionally through platform services.<\/p>\n
Frontier Innovation (20-30%): research and development partnerships with universities and co-investments in global startups developing technologies relevant to SIDS.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alongside the UAE, Moorthy said the Maldives recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Axiom and is nearing an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to help expand the space agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fund is the cradle, but everything else is also happening simultaneously \u2026 we\u2019re going into the execution stage immediately,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Falling satellite and launch costs are lowering barriers for nations to establish increasingly important sovereign space capabilities.<\/p>\n
In April, the Egypt-headquartered African Space Agency (AfSA) was created to coordinate programs across the continent, part of a wider push by emerging nations<\/a> to expand their presence in the global space economy.<\/p>\n