Image credit: Joanna Stern / ABC News

AUSTIN, Texas - Those Angry Birds have their work cut out for them. Not only have they been destroying those green pigs in celebration of Valentine's Day and every other major holiday, but they're now being launched into a outer space. Really.

Rovio, the maker of the cult game Angry Birds, has just announced, here at SXSW 2012, that its next version will be Angry Birds Space.

But this isn't just another iteration of the game. This one has has the full support of NASA. Yes, that NASA.

A demo video, released by Rovio, features astronaut Don Petitt on the International Space Station, where he shows how a stuffed toy Angry Bird and a balloon fly in a straight trajectory because of the lack of gravity in space.

Of course, the masses won't be playing the game aboard the space station, but the entire game has been redesigned with that weightless element. I got a chance to play it here at Samsung's Lounge in Austin, and the birds do in fact fly in straight lines. I only played a few levels, but it sure did seem to make the game a bit easier.

"NASA wants to educate about all things space, and they think this is a great tie-in with a game that shows off gravity in space," Rovio's Saara Bergstrom told ABC News.

Rovio has also teamed up with Samsung to offer some exclusive levels on the company's Galaxy Android devices. The game won't be available until March 22 in Apple's App Store and Google's Android Play store, but in the meantime you can check out the very cool in-space video demo of the game below.