Illinois Space Grant Consortium (EXT-028)

Summary 🟡 ✓

Owner Unit: External partner organization
Sub-unit: NASA National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program — Illinois consortium
Content Type: partnership
Campus/Location: Off-campus (consortium hosted at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; DePaul is a member campus)
Last Verified: August 19, 2026

Organization

The Illinois Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) is Illinois’ NASA Space Grant affiliate. It funds student fellowships, undergraduate research scholarships, and NASA-related education programs at member campuses.

Access status

Level: yellow (Negotiated Access)
Rationale: Space Grant scholarships and fellowships are competitive consortium awards coordinated by the DePaul site coordinator; not open facility access.
Access URL: csh.depaul.edu/academics/centers-and-institutes/stem/c…
Contact name: Bernhard Beck-Winchatz / Illinois Space Grant Consortium
Contact email: bbeckwin@depaul.edu
Verification date: 2026-08-19
Source URLs:
csh.depaul.edu/academics/centers-and-institutes/stem/c…
isgc.aerospace.illinois.edu/organization

Relationship to DePaul

DePaul has been an ISGC member campus (news cites membership since 2004). Bernhard Beck-Winchatz is DePaul site coordinator / campus director. The CSH STEM Center publishes the Space Grant collaboration page (scholarships, graduate fellowships, faculty/staff contact). Multiple DePaul awards in the grant registry are ISGC-funded (for example GRA-059 and related NASA education / scholarship records).

ISGC is the funding consortium. The ballooning hardware and launch facilities are DePaul’s, inventoried on CSH-009 STEM Center Hub: weather-balloon payloads (STEM 240), helium fill, and an ISGC-funded solar telescope named in 2024 eclipse coverage. Payload camera cases for that flight were printed at CDM-001 IRL.

Known collaborations & connections

Bernhard Beck-Winchatz — DePaul ISGC site coordinator
STEM Center Hub — DePaul HAB payloads, helium fill, ISGC-funded solar telescope
Idea Realization Lab — 3D-printed HAB camera/payload cases (2024 eclipse)
Physics & Astrophysics Laboratories
GRA-059 — NASA-based Courses for Chicago Public School Teachers (ISGC)

Collaborative documents

Document type	Scope	Parties	Status	Source
Member-campus listing	DePaul site coordinator	ISGC ↔ DePaul	Named on ISGC organization page	`sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/isgc-organization.html` (depaul/SRC-001587)
Campus program page	Scholarships / fellowships / contact	STEM Center ↔ ISGC	Published	`sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/csh-space-grant.html` (depaul/SRC-001586)
Campus director quote	Fellowships	DePaul News	Published 2023	`sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/news-space-consortium-2023.html` (depaul/SRC-001588)

Verification

Status: confirmed (✓)
Confidence: 90/100
Rationale: Institutional CSH page, consortium roster, and university news corroborate DePaul membership, campus coordinator, and Space Grant–supported ballooning/solar-telescope hardware housed on campus.
Last verified: 2026-08-19
Evidence:
CSH STEM Space Grant page (Beck-Winchatz site coordinator) — sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/csh-space-grant.html (depaul/SRC-001586)
ISGC organization page lists DePaul / Beck-Winchatz — sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/isgc-organization.html (depaul/SRC-001587)
DePaul News Space Grant fellowships — sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/news-space-consortium-2023.html (depaul/SRC-001588)
DePaul News eclipse HAB / ISGC-funded solar telescope — sources/inbox/2026-08-19-astro-user-facilities/source_snapshot/captured/news-solarscience.html (depaul/SRC-001590)

Equipment

Equipment access (via linked resources)

Resource	Notes
CSH-009	DePaul high-altitude ballooning facilities and ISGC-funded solar telescope (consortium funds; STEM Center / Physics holds the gear)
CDM-001	IRL fabrication of HAB camera/payload cases (2024 eclipse project)

Source: Illinois Space Grant Consortium; DePaul ballooning/solar-telescope hardware is on campus (packet 2026-08-19). Last verified: July 29, 2026.

Contacts (resource-level)

Website: CSH Illinois Space Grant
Website: ISGC organization

People & contacts

Named contacts from the people registry when publicly documented.

Bernhard Beck-Winchatz (Faculty lead) — bbeckwin@depaul.edu · Profile

Documented Relationships

NASA Space Grant member-campus partnership coordinated through Physics/STEM Center.

Linked Relationship IDs

Documented connections

Generated from publication↔resource and person↔publication registries. Superscript numbers open Sources below. Multiple sources on one claim are grouped as ^1,4. Grant links are listed on publication and grant pages.

Publications

Building an Undergraduate Cohort in High Altitude Ballooning (2015) — documented, documents · DOI¹
A high-altitude balloon platform for determining exchange of carbon dioxide over (2016) — supporting, mentions · DOI²
Tropospheric Sounding with Low-Cost Particulate Matter Sensors (2021) — supporting, mentions · DOI³
Tropospheric Sounding with Low-Cost Particulate Matter Sensors (2017) — supporting, mentions · DOI⁴

People on linked publications

Bernhard Beck-Winchatz (author; PUB-187)²
Mark J. Potosnak (author; PUB-187)²

Sources

in partnership with DePaul University and the Illinois Space Grant Consortium. Archived source retained by Resource Map maintainers. View current source
gazetteer hit in OA full text. Archived source retained by Resource Map maintainers. View current source
gazetteer hit in OA full text. Archived source retained by Resource Map maintainers. View current source
gazetteer hit in OA full text. Archived source retained by Resource Map maintainers. View current source

Notes

Promoted 2026-08-19 to give Space Grant awards a partner node (previously grant-only). Conference proceeding PUB-147 names DePaul as an Illinois Space Grant Consortium partner on a NASA high-altitude ballooning program.