Bounce! Bounce! That’s my way of saying hello! I’m Pixel, the jumping spider engineer aboard the International Animal Space Station! Don’t be scared of my eight legs and eight eyes—they make me the perfect space repair specialist!

My body is covered in soft charcoal gray fur with silvery highlights that sparkle in the starlight. My two big forward-facing eyes are bright emerald green (the better to see you with!), and my six smaller eyes help me see in almost every direction at once! When I’m working in space, I wear a pearly white space suit with blue accents and my special silver web-spinner backpack.

What makes me different from other engineers? Well, I can see things no one else can! My special eyes can spot ultraviolet light, which helps me find damage that regular cameras miss. Plus, I never, ever miss a jump—us jumping spiders have perfect depth perception and can calculate distances with amazing accuracy!

On my most exciting mission, I had to fix Solar Panel Array B when the power output was dropping. Commander Koala called me because their cameras couldn’t see what was wrong. I got into my space suit, checked my web-spinner backpack (which creates my safety tethers), and headed out for a space walk!

As I bounced between the solar panels, I used each pair of my eyes for different tasks: my forward eyes checked panel connections, my side eyes watched for space debris, my upper eyes monitored my tether, and my lower eyes mapped my path back! Talk about multitasking!

Using my ultraviolet vision, I discovered something everyone else had missed—tiny micrometeorite impacts had created a web of cracks! I used my web-spinner to create specialized patches and applied them with my precise legs. My silk works even better in zero gravity than it does on Earth!

Some spiders might be afraid of heights, but I love working in space! I can jump farther than any Earth spider, and seeing our beautiful planet below me while I work is the most amazing view.

When I’m not on repair missions, I’m planning maintenance checks or watching the stars through the station windows. After all, in space, even the smallest engineers can solve the biggest problems!

                                                                                 Eight-legged high-fives to you all! Pixel