STORIES of Space Non-profit and College of DuPage Students Advance Space Exploration with Weather Balloon Launch 

ST CHARLES, IL and Glen Ellyn, IL – March 17, 2025 STORIES of Space™, a non-profit supporting the human story in space, and student leaders from the College of DuPage, Illinois’ largest community college, will launch the stories of college students to Earth’s Stratosphere in a weather balloon this April. Combining the creative written story with scientific research inspires more young people to get involved in space exploration. 

Writing submissions for Mission 04 are being collected through April 19, 2025 in preparation for the Mission launch on April 26, 2025. 

While this mission is designed to support student storytellers, people of every age and background can submit a story at no cost through the STORIES of Space website: https://www.storiesofspace.com/submit-stories-mission-04 

The first of five STORIES of Space missions launched stories to the International Space Station from NASA’s Wallops launch facility, and stories returned on a SpaceX vehicle.  Additional missions include a Zero-G zero gravity flight and a rocket launch from Canada’s first commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia later this year. Additional missions are being announced in April. 

Now STORIES of Space partners with CoD student clubs for a stratosphere launch that provides a local and accessible mission for college students. This collaboration involves student-run College of DuPage clubs, including the Space Club, COD Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, Aviation Club, and The Writers of COD.  Students are aligning their academic work with hands-on research, storytelling, and engineering challenges to bring their mission to life. 

“Our STORIES of Space launch is a low-cost way to simulate aspects of spaceflight, test technology, and study how different materials and payloads react to extreme altitudes. It’s a tremendously unique way to invite all students to space exploration and bring creativity to exploring our universe,” explains student STORIES MISSION 04 Ambassador Pierson Lipschultz, a College of DuPage physics major and student leader of the CoD Space Club. “High-altitude weather balloons provide critical atmospheric data, helping scientists and engineers understand conditions that spacecraft experience when entering and exiting Earth’s atmosphere.”

“With every mission, we’re able to shape the future of [space] exploration through the power of story,” says Beth Mund, founder of STORIES of Space and a former NASA Public Affairs Officer at Johnson Space Center. “Each and every story matters.  STORIES of Space collects data that can inform future space missions, satellite launches, and even human spaceflight preparation. The students are building real-world experience across academic disciplines and our story contributors have the honor of sending their story into the stratosphere!” 

Stories of Space™ is a non-profit, 501c3 organization supported by donations. Personal contributions to this mission can be submitted on GoFundMe.  Corporate sponsors are available, and the deadline to apply to serve as the official sponsor for MISSION 04 is April 30, 2025 at hello@storiesofspace.com. 

About Stories of Space

STORIES of Space™ sends the written word to space, re-igniting scientific literacy and igniting passion for the space industry while also conducting a scientific experiment. With each mission, human written stories travel to space on microSD cards, helping to determine the ideal data storage hardware for future space technologies. Connecting people, the human story, and scientific research, STORIES of Space can shape our future - one story at a time.