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A privately owned US communication satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite in orbit posing a risk to the international space station, which a NASA official said was the first such incident in space.

It was the first such collision in space, NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said Wednesday, adding that the magnitude of the accident was still unknown.

NASA will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred Tuesday nearly 790 km over Siberia, at an altitude used by satellites that monitor weather and carry telephone communications among other things.

According to an e-mail alert issued by NASA Wednesday, Russia’s Cosmos 2251 satellite slammed into the Iridium 33 satellite at 11.55 a.m. (0455 GMT). The incident was observed by the US Defence Department’s Space Surveillance Network, which later tracked two large clouds of debris.

“This is the first time we have ever had two intact spacecraft accidentally run into each other,” said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “It was a bad day for both of them.”

He said outdated spacecraft, rocket stages and other components break apart in space every year, but there have only been three relatively minor collisions between such objects in the last 20 years. Never before have two intact satellites crashed into one another by accident, he added.

The debris created in Tuesday’s collision is being tracked to assess its risk of damaging other satellites and the International Space Station, which is currently home to two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut.

The space station orbits at an altitude of about 354 km, well below the impact point between the Russian and US satellites.

NASA believed that any risk to the space station and its three astronauts is low. There also should be no danger to a space shuttle set to launch Feb 22 with seven astronauts, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

The risk of damage from Tuesday’s collision is greater for the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites, which are in higher orbit and nearer the debris field.

At the beginning of this year, there were roughly 17,000 pieces of man made debris orbiting Earth, Johnson said.

Litter in orbit has increased in recent years, in part because of the break-up of old satellites. Orbital debris is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight, surpassing the dangers of lift-off and return to Earth.

Iridium, which operates a constellation of 66 low earth orbiting satellites providing mobile voice and data communications globally, said Wednesday that the incident could result in limited disruptions of service.

In a statement, Iridium characterised the incident as a “very low probability event” and said it was taking immediate action to minimise any loss of service.

The company has a system of active satellites that relay calls from portable phones that are about twice the size of a regular mobile phone. It has more than 300,000 subscribers. The US Defence Department is one of its largest customers.

Iridium said its system remains healthy and that it would implement a “network solution” by Friday.

“Within the next 30 days, Iridium expects to move one of its in-orbit spare satellites into the network constellation to permanently replace the lost satellite,” the statement said.

The 560-kg Iridium 33 satellite involved in the collision was launched in 1997 while the 900-kg Russian satellite was launched in 1993 and presumed non-operational.

Standing in a field of debris where mobile homes once stood, Sue Rose wondered how a half-mile wide tornado could ravage nearly everything in sight and take so many lives but spare hers.

“I don’t know how I made it,” said Rose, who rode out Tuesday’s storm in a trailer at the Bar K Mobile Home Park with family members.

“I tried to keep the kids calm. We just prayed,” she said, fighting back tears Wednesday.

Rose’s home was heavily damaged and dozens more were destroyed after a tornado with winds estimated at 170 mph ripped through Lone Grove just after dark Tuesday night.

Search and rescue crews were expected on Thursday to resume the task of sifting through scattered bricks and beams to find any remaining victims.

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management reported eight deaths early Wednesday and Carter County Sheriff Ken Grace said a man who was injured in the storm and transferred to a Dallas hospital died later in the day.

“The majority of the deaths appeared to be blunt force trauma to the head,” said Cherokee Ballard, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner’s office.

President Barack Obama spoke to Gov. Brad Henry and Oklahoma Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn and “passed along his condolences and best wishes to the victims,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also offered Henry “any and all support” to help rebuild infrastructure destroyed by the storm, as well as support to those who lost their homes.

Most of the deaths occurred in the mobile home park, where no tornado shelter was available for residents to take refuge. In one case, a victim was found underneath a pickup truck the tornado had lifted and dropped on him.

There also were miraculous tales of survival. People who were huddling in a closet grabbed a woman after the tornado blew part of the roof off and threatened to carry her away. Rescuers found another woman injured but alive under an overturned mobile home.

Firefighters methodically searched each damaged or destroyed structure in Lone Grove on Wednesday, spray-painting a large X on homes after inspection and allowing residents to go in and check for belongings.

Ginger Byrne got to look for cherished possessions in a pile of rubble that used to be her mobile home. The tornado picked it up and dropped it about 100 feet north of where it had stood.

“I found my Bible, my mother’s ring,” Byrne said. “It’s just stuff. I have memories in my heart.”

It may take months, even years, before the community of about 4,600 fully recovers, but Henry said state residents have “become very good at responding to disaster.”

“Oklahomans have gone through this kind of disaster before,” he said. “We know what we are doing. We will rebuild.”

Sheriff’s Deputy David Gilley said between 100 and 150 homes were destroyed in the town, located about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City.

Residents apparently had good warning of the approaching twister. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning, meaning a tornado is imminent and residents should take shelter, at 6:50 p.m. for Carter County. Another was issued at 7:15 p.m. when the actual tornado was spotted. The tornado hit Lone Grove at 7:25 p.m.

The Lone Grove tornado was the third to cause multiple fatalities in the state since March 2007, when a Panhandle couple became the state’s first tornado deaths in almost six years.

The storm took many by surprise because even in tornado-prone Oklahoma, February twisters are rare. According to the weather service, 44 have touched down in the state during the month of February since 1950.

Two other tornadoes hit the Oklahoma City metro area and in north-central Oklahoma late Tuesday. No serious injuries were reported in the Oklahoma City storm, but at least six homes were destroyed and businesses were damaged there, officials said.

Oklahoma’s severe weather season generally begins in March and runs through mid-June, a fact not lost on Henry, who wondered whether this was a fluke or a sign of things to come in the spring.

“It’s a big concern. I kind of thought we were still in winter.”

An unmanned Russian cargo ship launched into space early Tuesday carrying a fresh load of coffee, chocolate and other vital supplies for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The automated space freighter Progress 32 lifted off atop a Russian-built Soyuz rocket at 12:49 a.m. EST (0549 GMT) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Packed aboard the disposable spaceship are nearly 2 1/2 tons of traditional supplies like clothes, fresh fruit and equipment, as well as some special requests for the space station’s crew.

“Of course chocolate,” space station flight engineer Sandra Magnus, an admitted chocolate fan, told SPACE.com in an interview last week via a space-to-ground link. “Coffee. The boys like to drink coffee, so we asked for some of that as well.”

Magnus and station commander Michael Fincke, both of NASA, said they and fellow crewmate Yury Lonchakov of Russia were eagerly looking forward to Progress 32’s arrival on Friday.

Progress 32 is due to arrive at the space station at 2:19 a.m. EST (0719 GMT) on Friday morning, when it docks at an Earth-facing berth on the outpost’s Russian-built Pirs docking compartment. Packed aboard the spacecraft are more than 1,910 pounds (866 kg) of propellant for the space station’s engines, 110 pounds (50 kg) of oxygen and air for its astronaut crew, as well as 2,860 pounds (1,297 kg) of dry cargo, such as food, clothing, experiment hardware and other supplies. The spacecraft is also reportedly carrying a new Russian-built spacesuit, according to Russian wire reports.

Progress 32 replaces the older Progress 31 cargo ship, which launched to the space station last November and undocked last week to ultimately burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere in a fiery disposal on Sunday.

The Russian Federal Space Agency’s Progress cargo ships are similar in appearance to the agency’s crew-carrying Soyuz TMA spacecraft. Both have three modules, one of which is a propulsion and instrumentation section. But instead of a crew capsule and orbital module, which take the top two spots on Soyuz vehicles, Progress ships have a propellant tank to refuel the space station in the center and a cargo-packed orbital module on top.

Also known as Progress M-66, the Progress 32 cargo ship is Russia’s second to last space freighter in the 300 series that uses an older analog control system, according to Russian wire reports. The spacecraft is due to be replaced with the updated 400 series, which features a new onboard computer and telemetry systems, they added.

NASA will broadcast the docking of Progress 32 at the International Space Station live on NASA TV on Friday beginning at 1:30 a.m. EST (0630 GMT). Click here for a link to SPACE.com’s live NASA TV feed and space station mission updates.