Bay Area astronaut - and 1st Native woman - leads crew to space

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. - A new crew of astronauts led by a Bay Area woman has arrived at the International Space Station.

Nicole Mann, commander of the SpaceX Dragon, also became the first Native American woman to live and stay aboard the space station.

She's a Marine Corps pilot and NASA astronaut, as well as a member of the Wailacki tribe of the Round Valley Indian Tribes.

She was born in Petaluma, and graduated from Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park and Stanford University.

Her international crew launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and arrived at the space station on Thursday and will now spend the next six months performing scientific experiments.

Mann is joined by Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the only active woman cosmonaut and the first Russian to fly in a U.S. spacecraft since 2002; fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada,, and Japan’s Koichi Wakata, the only experienced space flier of the bunch with five missions.