Modern economies rely on precise timing for finance, telecom, energy, and navigation. Future systems need resilient alternatives to single-source satellite timing during cyberattacks, solar storms, and geopolitical crises. The solution must work with limited capital, intermittent services, and local maintenance capacity. The research opportunity is to define measurable success criteria, test the approach in realistic settings, identify failure modes, and create a pathway from prototype to accountable deployment.
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World Solve is a public institutional repository for identifying real unresolved problems across science, society, health, governance, economics, and local systems. Each entry is intended to be citable, inspectable, and actionable.
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Space and satellite technology development remains limited to a few leading Asian nations.
open
Asia, Asia
Most countries in the region depend on foreign satellites for communication, weather monitoring, and navigation. Regional satellite-sharing consortiums could give smaller nations affordable access to space-based data.
We cannot reliably predict solar coronal mass ejections before they breach Earth's magnetosphere.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
Carrington-level space weather events can destroy global electrical grids, communication satellites, and orbital stations. Advanced space-based magnetometers and AI predictive models are required for early warning systems.
We lack direct spectroscopic confirmation of biosignature gases in Earth-sized exoplanet atmospheres.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
Identifying traces of methane, ozone, and water vapor simultaneously on rocky extrasolar planets remains at the limit of current telescopes. Space-based starshades and high-contrast coronagraphs are needed to resolve atmospheric details.
We lack an efficient way to beam high-power electrical energy across orbital distances.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
Space-based solar power requires transmitting multi-gigawatt microwave or laser beams safely through Earth's atmosphere. Phased array antenna precision and efficiency losses remain significant engineering bottlenecks.
We cannot directly detect low-frequency gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
Ground-based laser interferometers like LIGO can only hear high-frequency stellar-mass black hole collisions. Space-based interferometers with million-kilometer laser baselines (like LISA) are required.
The source mechanisms generating Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) are unidentified.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
UHECR particles carry millions of times more energy than Earth's particle accelerators can generate. Identifying their origins requires large space-based cosmic ray detection arrays scanning the atmosphere.
We cannot easily detect dark, metallic near-Earth asteroids approaching from the direction of the Sun.
open
Global / Unspecified, Global
Solar glare blinds optical ground survey telescopes, leaving blind spots where dangerous asteroids can approach unnoticed. Space-based infrared observatories placed at Lagrange point L1 are required for solar-side scanning.