Felix was selected from more than 400 students who applied from the West African country. She will spend two hours on a modified Boeing aircraft, which will soar 6 miles above the Earth before dropping, giving about a half-minute of weightlessness with each cycle.
``I feel like I'm an ambassador," she said in an interview Tuesday, a day before departing for the United States.
She added that many of her countrymen ``thought [space] was only for whites. They don't know that a Nigerian can do it too."
Felix is the top student in her favorite subjects -- physics and chemistry -- at Moremi High School in the southern town of Ife. Most of her class of 60 are lucky to have one book to share between two students.
``At least we all have chairs," Felix said with a laugh.
Flight organizers said Felix was selected based on her performance at a workshop in which applicants had to build models of rockets and satellites. She also fit the profile they were looking for -- a girl between 15 and 18 from a poor family.
Nigeria's ruined infrastructure almost never supplies electricity to her home, and water is drawn from a well in a back yard.
Her parents, who make a living selling secondhand clothes, have not been able to afford textbooks for their daughter's favorite subjects. But they have saved enough money to put all their seven children through school.
``I'll be looking up in the sky for her," Felix's mother, Eunice said, hugging her daughter. ``I'm very, very happy. God will protect her."
Spaceweek International organizes educational events for the United Nations World Space Week in early October each year.
