Mandla Maseko, a South African who won the chance to be the first black African in space has been killed in a motorbike accident. Maseko, 30, was killed, on Saturday a family statement says.
Afronaut and Spaceboy popularly known described himself as a typical township boy from Pretoria.
In 2013, the South African Air Force member beat one million entrants to win one of 23 places at a space academy in the US.
He had spent a week at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida doing tests in preparation for an hour-long sub-orbital flight, originally scheduled for 2015. (NAN)
