Daemon Carroll of Smithfield is one of eight undergraduate students in the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, dubbed the UW Space Cowboys, who designed and built the Flag Assembly with Shark-Stake and Tether, a lunar flag, flagpole and anchoring system that can be deployed on the lunar surface.

The UW Space Cowboys’ objective is to design a lunar flagpole and anchoring system that can be deployed on the lunar surface. While traditionally the flag has been anchored using something like a garden stake, the goal of this challenge is to improve upon that method by increasing the flag height, improving stability and making it easier for the astronaut to install.

As NASA is challenged to go forward to the moon during the Artemis missions, an important and symbolic task during extravehicular activities will be to deploy a flag on the lunar surface.

Two UW student teams have been selected to advance to Phase 2 in NASA’s 2024 Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (NExT) engineering design challenge. The second team from UW’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, dubbed the UW Crater Cowboys, designed and built the little lunar saddlebag, a hand carrier device that can be used to store and move tools during lunar extravehicular activity in microgravity.