NASA astronaut with Bay Area ties arrives at International Space Station

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As astronaut with Bay Area roots is now onboard NASA's International Space Station.

The Soyuz MS-01 space capsule docked with the space station at 9:06 p.m. Friday.

It carried astronaut, Kathleen Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The 3-person crew entered the station at 11:56 p.m., when the hatches opened between the Soyuz and ISS.

They were welcomed by the crew there, Jeff Williams of NASA, and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin.

While Rubins, 37, was born in Connecticut in 1978, she was raised in Napa, California.

She graduated from Vintage High School in 1996, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of California, San Diego in 1999. Rubins went on to receive a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at Stanford in 2005.

Her father still lives in Napa, while her mother now resides in Davis.

NASA says her research has helped to create therapies for Ebola and Lassa viruses. This is her first space flight.

Rubins is scheduled to become the first person to sequence DNA in space. She will examine how a person's bones and cardiovascular system are affected by living in space.

Rubins and Jeff Williams will later take a space walk, and install equipment at the space station. Williams, Skripochka and Ovchinin are scheduled to return to Earth in September. While Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi are expected to return in late October.