Anime about some teens that are trained to fly spaceships

Question

I can't seem to find the name of a space anime where some kids are selected to learn how to fly spaceships. Earth is still inhabited and the kids fly to outer space to board a vessel where they are taught lessons and have test flights on spacecraft. I remember that the main character seemed to be particularly gifted in flying spaceships.

In one of the episodes one of the characters got into an accident. In the last few episodes the characters had to fight against an existential threat. The last episode of the anime had a time skip where you could see that the characters were all grownups. I remember there being a black female character in the anime that is an instructor.

I went through all the animes listed under space on my anime list and none of them look familiar or have a similar plot.

Answer 1

Just to turn my comment into an answer, I would suggest you are thinking of Stellvia of the Universe (Uchuu no Stellvia). The main plot is that Earth has rebuilt following massive upheaval caused by the shockwave from a supernova and the solar system has created a number of "foundations" (space stations) to help protect against the second wave (i.e. the supernova star's physical remnants). The main character is part of a new freshman class to one of these stations to become a pilot.

The main character is a genius programmer, but quickly becomes the top pilot in the class though, enough to be noticed by the top pilots. The flight instructor is indeed a dark skinned female. I don't believe anyone suffers an accident, although one of the top pilots attempts to sabotage her, making it look like an accident (one of the classmates did suffer this same attack last year and is repeating the year).

The main mission of protecting against the second wave is resolved halfway, the second half features a new threat in the form of the "cosmic fracture" which resembles the Nexus from Star Trek Generations. There is a time skip at the end, but it's just a year or two where their class are now seniors and welcome the new class which was clearly a hook for a sequel that didn't happen.

Answer 2

I don't know for sure... But that sounds sort of like Voltron: Legendary Defender. It's not really an anime, but the styles are very similar to anime. One of the main characters (Most of them, actually) are very good at flying spaceships. Earth is still inhabited, and they do leave on a spaceship... Everything seems to fit. Also, the characters do battle against a severe threat at the end and it skips forward to when the characters are adults in the last episode.