The NASA Space Weather Viewer is now available in the Google Android Market. You can download it here. Becoming a Google Developer and posting the app to the market was very simple process.

Back in November, I shared some of the difficulties we encountered developing and publishing the iOS version of the application. (By the way, I still believe, long term Apple will have difficulties with their model, but certainly Android and the iPad alternatives have stumbled quite a bit with the Honeycomb release.) Still, in the end the iOS version has been very successful (see: Over 100K Downloads for NASA Space Weather iPhone App in March).

Below is a video we made showing the NASA Space Weather Viewer running on Samsung Galaxy tablet and Android phone. The video is also embedded in app listing the Android Market.  A simple, but smart feature for previewing apps in the market.

We will let you know how the Space Weather app does in the Android Market and if we see anything like the success we’ve had in the iTunes Store.

We’ve just completed our first release of the Android version of the NASA Space Weather Media Viewer. Like the version we developed last fall for the Apple iPhone & iPod, the Space Weather Viewer for Android features near-real-time imagery from a wide variety of NASA missions, as well as video interviews with prominent scientists.

The new Android version will be available in the Google Android Market Place and on the Amazon App Store later this month.

If you’d like to get a sneak peak of this new NASA app, you can download the alpha version right here: NASASpaceViewer.apk (4.6 mb) Update: May 31: It’s now live in the Google Market Place: NASA Space Weather Viewer

The NASA Space Weather Viewer is now available in the Google Android Market. You can download it here.

It requires Android 2.2 or greater and Adobe AIR 2.6. We’ve run it with Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” and it runs great.

The app is optimized for phones or tablets and we’ve tested it on the following devices: HTC EVO, Motorola Xoom, Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy Tablet, and the Samsung Galaxy Epic. Please let us know what you think. We will be making the source code for this Android app later this summer.

If you’re looking for more information about the Apple iOS version and source code, see our last blog post on that version, “Over 100K Downloads for NASA Space Weather iPhone App in March.”

With the sun currently approaching solar maximum, the most active period in the solar cycle, solar flares have become more common and powerful. This has led to some concerns about damage to satellites and electric power grids and it has also helped generate amazing and beautiful auroras.

The increased interest in “space weather” has also spiked interest in our free Space Weather Viewer iPhone app, which we developed for NASA back in November. We’ve had 107,528 downloads in the Apple App Store this month. The downloads peaked at 9,035 on March 13th although we have had more than 4,000 downloads each day this month.

Outreach efforts by our partners at Goddard Space Flight Center and the Sun-Earth Day 2011 events have also likely helped push the numbers upward.  You can download the Space Weather Viewer iPhone app in iTunes store. If you’re a developer you can download the source code for the app at Github, there’s more about this release in previous blog post, Source Released for the NASA Space Weather iPhone App.

The Android version of this app will be available next month.

For anybody interested in the NASA Space Weather Media Viewer and iPhone/iPad/iPod development, we’ve released the source code for the NASA Space Weather Media Viewer mobile edition! You can find it on its new GitHub home page (https://github.com/ideum/NASA-Space-Weather-Media-Viewer). If you’re looking for the app itself, you can download it for free in the iTunes store.

We’ve utilized the awesome Three20 library originally engineered by the folks at Facebook, and a simple CoreData store organizes the media assets. Though they’re streamed from the NASA server to your device, you’ll find all the video content in the source (be prepared for a long checkout process). The RichContentViewController displays HTML content with text sizing options and ShareKit integration, and the SegmentedNavigationController provides an alternative interface to the icon-based buttons available with the standard navigation controller.

As we mentioned in a previous post on the Space Weather Viewer app, the iPhone development process was not as smooth as we might have hoped. By releasing the source code, we hope to aid students and educational programs that may want to try building their own iPhone app as well as programmers just getting into iPhone development.

We’ve been following the Bush Administration’s alleged attempts to censor NASA scientists and research findings for the last couple of months. Today, we learn that NASA has unveiled new rules on the release of agency information. The Washington Post has an article, NASA Sets New Rules On Media. They state…

NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin unveiled new rules yesterday that govern the release of agency information to news media and the public, his most detailed response yet to embarrassing allegations that NASA’s public affairs office had sought to suppress the release of scientific information not consistent with the views of the Bush administration.

While the new rules seem like a welcomed clarification (or change?), it does seem like they want to have both ways. The Post reports…

It calls upon all NASA employees to coordinate with public affairs officials before releasing information “that has the potential to generate significant media, or public interest or inquiry.” Employees are also encouraged “to the maximal extent practicable” to have a public affairs officer present at media interviews “to attest to the content of the interview, support the interviewee, and provide post-interview follow-up with the media as necessary.”

We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. You may want to read the New York Times article on the same topic to learn more, New NASA Policy Backs Free Discussion by Scientists.