SPACE DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES IN MAURITIUS

ABSTRACT
Mauritius could play a meaningful role in select space activities, but given limited resources the
question remains as to which space related activities would produce the greatest benefit to
Mauritius while also laying the foundation for more future work in the field.
Other Island nations around the world, most notably Gibraltar and the Isle of Man, have adopted
a number of specific measures to attract the space industry to their economies with various levels
of success. Can Mauritius learn from their examples, adopting and then adapting for its own
success?
Mauritius could be ideally placed to benefit the international space industry through both the use
of its applications and through the provision of services to it. However the question remains as
to which services and applications Mauritius is best suited to use and in return to provide
Mauritius is a small tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean which is rapidly growing
and a strategy of rapidly trying to harness new avenues of development. With a GDP growth of
around 4.6 %, corresponding to a purchasing power parity of $16.09 billion (2005 est.),
Mauritius spends quite a significant amount of money in education. But research activities in
space development are at the moment limited.
We will describe the effects and impacts of an increase in order of magnitude of the funding of
space activities in Mauritius, with a systems approach. We aim to show that by adopting a
coherent National Space Strategy, Mauritius will be able to integrate new technologies and make
the best use of it. Owing to the specificities of the insularity of the island and the limited
resources available, Mauritius has to find partners for effective cooperation in space related
activities.
We will discuss the multifaceted beneficial role that investing in current and future space
technologies might impact the development of Mauritius. There are countless products that we
use today that are direct by-products of aerospace and there are many indirect spin-offs to be
tapped. We endeavor to show that Mauritius may possess the geographic and economic
advantages that are attractive to potential investors in the space business sector and thus be once
again the star and key of the Indian Ocean for giving access to space technologies to the
surrounding region.