Ascension Island a staging point by the British military during the Falklands War. Ascension Island hosts one of four ground antennas (others are on Kwajalein Island, Diego Garcia, and Cape Canaveral) that assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigational system. NASA operates a Meter Class Autonomous Telescope (MCAT) on Ascension Island for tracking orbital debris, which is potentially hazardous to operating spacecraft and astronauts, at a facility called the John Africano NASA/AFRL Orbital Debris Observatory. In 1501, the Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque sighted the island on Ascension Day (which fell on 21 May that year) and named
5th Portuguese India Armada (Albuquerque, 1503) Kochi), just a little northwest of the old city of Cochin proper ("Cochim-de-Cima", 'Upper Cochin', now Mattancherry) (the seat of Trimumpara Raja). Fort Sant'Iago was the first Portuguese fort in Asia. The timber would be replaced by stone in 1505 by Francisco de Almeida and renamed "Fort Manuel" (after the Portuguese king). The Portuguese were also given permission to erect what is arguably the first Roman Catholic church in Asia, "São Bartolomeu", within the fort in 1504 (later rebuilt in stone and rededicated several times, it currently stands as St. Francis church in Kochi). October, 1503 - Setting out from