Physics Doctoral Student Advances Research to Improve Effectiveness for Scientific Instruments on the Moon’s Surface 

College of Sciences Ph.D. Candidate makes strides with research on lunar space exploration with NASA fellowship 

By: Emily Dougherty | January 28, 2025 

Jared Long-Fox, a doctoral student in the Planetary Science Track in the Department of Physics within the College of Sciences, is advancing research supported by the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities Fellowship (NSTGRO), a prestigious award for graduate students who show major potential to contributing new technology to NASA’s research, which funds his research, tuition, and travel expenses for up to four years.  

Long-Fox is leveraging the fellowship he received in 2023 to support research for the quantitative optimization of planetary excavation methods. This will help planetary scientists to better understand how the regolith on the moon’s surface will interact with scientific instruments such as rover wheels.  

Regolith is a fine dusty layer on the moon’s surface that is composed of crushed up rock, which is abundant with oxygen, metals, and depending on where on the Moon, water ice can be found in it. Long-Fox says that extracting this material can help create a better understanding of how technology will interact with the moon’s surface.   

“We (NASA) want to excavate the moon for many of the same reasons we do excavation here on earth; to gather resources and for infrastructure development,” he says. “This excavation research will allow us to design equipment to more efficiently and safely excavate regolith for resource extraction, building, and provide new opportunistic science measurements.” 

“Since the Moon only has one-sixth of the Earth’s gravity, keeping traction during the scooping process is challenging. Anything we can do to reduce the force utilized to excavate regolith is going to save a lot of time, money, and energy in lunar and planetary surface operations,” says Long-Fox. 

Through his research, he discovered that environmental factors on Earth aren’t the ideal conditions for testing this equipment. 

“The findings of my research on both regolith-wheel interactions and excavation mechanics show that the standard methods and computational models we use to study these things on Earth are not applicable to studies of bodies other than Earth,” Long-Fox says. “We need to develop entirely new methodologies to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond.” 

Long-Fox shared that his love for science stemmed from when he was in eighth grade during his earth science class. While pursuing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, he found an interest in planetary science from his work in developing rovers for exploration in extreme environments on Earth.  

“Starting out with early learning of earth science set the spark for my planetary exploration career; it was a natural transition to pursue this research at UCF,” Long-Fox says.

His passion for planetary science and experience with advanced technology at “SpaceU” caught the interest of NASA, leading to other opportunities.  

“I was the lead developer of the wheel testbed at UCF, named Regolith Interactions for the Development of Extraterrestrial Rovers (RIDER). This began as a project under my advisor, Dr. Dan Britt, to build a full-scale rover wheel testbed to answer scientific questions about how to efficiently drive on planetary surfaces and how driving on the surface causes the surface to change,” he says. “Now the testbed is commercially available, and we have people and institutions, including NASA, testing their rover wheel designs in our UCF facility at the Exolith Lab.” 

Long-Fox credits his SpaceU education with helping him to advance his research and career.  

“My education at UCF has opened the door to numerous opportunities through our experienced and connected faculty,” he says. “UCF is a major partner with NASA, and I value the interdisciplinary collaboration that happens with our faculty and staff.”    

Long-Fox shared his advice to future and current Knights who may have an interest in planetary research.  

“Persistence and curiosity really drive a lot of what I do,” he says. “You must be okay with accepting failure in science. It always teaches you something, so it is still a success because you generate new knowledge.”