Shota Hirai

He engaged in research and development on hybrid rockets at the Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University. In 2019, he received the best paper award from AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) In 2020, he founded Letara Corporation to commercialize university technology In 2021, he received the Asia Oceania Award at S-Booster2021, a space business idea contest sponsored by the Cabinet Office In 2022, he was selected for the “1stRound” accelerator program sponsored by the University of Tokyo In 2022, he was selected for the “1stRound” accelerator program sponsored by the IPC of the University of Tokyo; in 2023, he was selected for the “FASTAR” accelerator program sponsored by the Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation of Japan. In the same year, he was selected for the METI GoTech grant and the NEDO DTST STS grant.