Mandla Maseko: Man set to be first black African astronaut dies in road crash

The man set to be the first black African astronaut has died in a road crash.

Mandla Maseko, 30, was killed on Saturday in a motorbike accident, according to his family.

Nicknamed Afronaut and Spaceboy, Maseko, from South Africa, beat one million entrants to win one of 23 places at a space academy in America.

In preparation for his hour-long sub-orbital flight, originally scheduled for 2015, he had spent a week at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida undergoing tests.

His challenges at the space centre included skydiving 10,000ft and a test called the 'vomit comet'.

The vomit comet is a room where participants stand against a wall and it starts spinning, before the floor disappears leaving them pushed against the wall by G-Force alone.

However, when the company set to organise his flight to space, XCOR Aerospace, went bankrupt in 2017 - Maseko never got his chance to make his dreams a reality.

He returned to work in the armed forces as a private pilot and was a keen biker in his spare time, reports the BBC.

Discussing his quest to experience a flight to space, Maseko said he wanted to do something and motivate young people in Africa.

He told the BBC he planned to call them from space, saying: "I hope I have one line that will be used in years to come - like Neil Armstrong did.