Mandla Maseko (27 August 1988 – 6 July 2019) was a South African aviator, who aimed to be the first black South African in space.

He was born in Soshanguve, north Pretoria,[1] to an auto tool maker and a school cleaner.

[2] He was a candidate officer of the South African Air Force,[2] as well as a private pilot, a DJ, and a biker.

He went to the Kennedy Space Center for a week to do tests, such as skydiving and a journey on a reduced-gravity aircraft, ahead of a planned one-hour suborbital flight[3] on board a XCOR Lynx Mark II[2] that was planned to take place in 2015.

[3] He would have been the third South African in space, after Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and Mike Melvill in 2004.