No one in Mandla Maseko’s family has ever stepped outside South Africa, but the young township DJ is set to rocket into space next year.

From the dusty district of Mabopane, near Pretoria, 25-year-old Maseko has landed a coveted seat to fly 103-kilometres into space in 2015, after winning a competition organised by a US-based space academy.

He beat off a million other entrants from 75 countries to be selected as one of 23 people who will travel on an hour-long sub-orbital trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship..

More at South African set to be the first black ‘afronaut’ via Voices of Africa