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Wally Funk, a trailblazing aviation pioneer who was denied the opportunity to become a Nasa astronaut and half a century later became the oldest woman to travel into space, has died aged 87.

Funk died peacefully on Wednesday evening at her apartment in an assisted living facility in Grapevine, Texas, city councilwoman and close friend Duff O’Dell said on Thursday. O’Dell, who described herself as Funk’s caregiver, said she was by Funk’s side. Funk had fallen a couple of times recently and had an infection in her leg. “It took its toll,” O’Dell told the Associated Press.

“Wally was a beloved Grapevine resident whose extraordinary accomplishments and generous spirit left an enduring legacy,” the city of Grapevine shared on Facebook.

“The City of Grapevine proudly recognizes Wally Funk, whose extraordinary career has inspired generations by breaking barriers in aviation and space exploration. Funk continues to serve as a global symbol of determination, perseverance, and excellence.”

Born on 1 February 1939, “Funk dedicated more than seven decades to aviation, becoming one of the world’s most accomplished female pilots and, ultimately, fulfilling her lifelong dream of traveling to space”, the post reads.

She received her flying licence at Stephens College in Missouri and went on to study education at Oklahoma State University, mainly because it had an aviation team known as the Flying Aggies. “As a Flying Aggie, I could do all the manoeuvres as well as the boys, if not better,” she told the Guardian in 2019. After that, she became a flight instructor – the only female one – at a US military base.

Funk volunteered for Nasa’s Women in Space program in 1961, a privately funded effort to test whether the US’s best female pilots could become astronauts. The 13 female pilots – who became known as the Mercury 13 – went through the same rigorous physical and psychological tests as Nasa’s all-male astronaut corps as the space age began.

Funk became the youngest woman to graduate from the program, and she was told she “had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys”, she said in a promotional video for her later Blue Origin flight.

She even spent 10 hours and 35 minutes inside a sensory deprivation tank in one Mercury 13 test, outperforming the famed astronaut John Glenn.

But the programme, which was not sanctioned by Nasa, was cancelled after doubts were raised about whether women should take part. Glenn said including women in the space programme “may be undesirable”.

Instead, seven men – the “Mercury Seven” – who were tested separately, were chosen by Nasa to be its first astronauts. Among them were Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space when he completed a suborbital flight 1961, and Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.

Funk made several subsequent attempts to be accepted for Nasa’s astronaut corps, but was told she couldn’t as she didn’t have an engineering degree. The agency did not admit female astronauts until 1978, when Funk was 39.

“I got a hold of Nasa four times, and said ‘I want to become an astronaut’, but nobody would take me,” Funk said, according to CNN.

“I didn’t think I would ever get to go up. Nothing has ever gotten in my way. They say, ‘Wally, you’re a girl, you can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Guess what? [It] doesn’t matter what you are. You can still do it if you want to do it.’ And I like to do things that nobody’s ever done before.”

Undaunted, she continued to fly. She owned a flying school in Taos, New Mexico, where she grew up and taught aviation privately, and also served as the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration, looking into crashes, and later for the National Transportation Safety Board.

She had extensive flying experience, logging over 19,600 flying hours and teaching more than 3,000 people how to fly private and commercial aircraft.

“Aviation has been my whole life,” Funk wrote in her 2020 memoir. “I eat it, and I breathe it.” When she spoke to the Guardian in 2019, she was still teaching flying every Saturday. Asked if she could see a time when she would have to stop, she yelled: “No! I’ll be flying till I die.”

Though she never got to fly for Nasa, in 2021, at the age of 82, she finally got her chance to go to space – onboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket.

At the time, she was the oldest person to launch into space, though the record was later broken by actor William Shatner and Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate, who were both 90 when they went into space in 2021 and 2024 respectively. Funk remains the oldest woman to do it.

Bezos chose Funk as an “honored guest” to ride alongside him and two others on his Blue Origin rocket, in an 11-minute flight.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to finally get it up there, and I’ve done a lot of astronaut training through the world – Russia, America – and I could always beat the guys on what they were doing because I was always stronger and I’ve always done everything on my own,” Funk said during a post-flight news conference. “I want to go again, fast. I loved every minute of it. I just wish it had been longer.”

“Wally Funk’s unwavering determination proves that dreams have no expiration date,” said O’Dell in a statement. “Her courage, resilience, and groundbreaking achievements continue to inspire young people – especially girls – to pursue careers in science, aviation, and space exploration. Grapevine is honored to call Wally Funk one of our own.”

Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X: “Wally Funk never stopped believing that one day she would reach space. Her passion for flight, perseverance, and love of exploration will continue to inspire generations of Americans. Godspeed, Wally.”

Blue Origin also paid tribute to Funk in a post on X, calling her “a pioneer in every sense of the word”.

“She became the youngest of the Mercury 13, outperforming nearly every test put in front of her, and ultimately, the only one of the thirteen to have ever reached space,” the post reads.

“On NS-16, 60 years later, Wally made history as the oldest astronaut at the time and remains the oldest woman to ever fly to space. It was a moment six decades in the making. We were humbled to be part of her journey. Her story will continue to inspire generations of future explorers. Fly, Wally, fly.”

Associated Press contributed to this report