A man who won the chance to be the first black African in space has died in a motorbike crash before his dream trip.
Mandla Maseko, a part-time DJ and South African air force member, was nicknamed ‘Afronaut’ after winning the chance to fly into space in a 2013 competition.
Mr Maseko beat one million entrants to win one of the 23 places on the trip 103km (64 miles) into space, organised by a US-based space academy.
He died in a motorcycle accident on Saturday, according to a family statement in local media.
Before the trip originally schedule for 2015, he had spent a week at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida where he did skydiving and G-Force training.
People from 75 countries had entered the competition for the hour-long sub-orbital trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship.
No firm plans for the trip had been made public at the time of Mr Maseko’s death.
Born to a school cleaner and auto tool maker in Shoshanguve near Petoria, his win was a source of national pride.
Mr Maseko previously told the BBC he wanted to do something that would motivate and inspire young people in Africa and prove that they could achieve anything whatever their background.
He said he planned to call them from space, telling the broadcaster: "I hope I have one line that will be used in years to come - like Neil Armstrong did".
