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
Fort of Our Lady of the Conception Portuguese commander Afonso de Albuquerque in 1507, when his forces seized the island for a short time, being then named "Fort of Our Lady of Victory" ("Forte de Nossa Senhora da Vitória"). Engaging his men of all ranks in the building works, Albuquerque faced a revolt and had to retreat. He came back and reconquered the island in 1515, when he completed and renamed the fort. The Persian Safavid king, Abbas I of Persia (1587–1629), wanted to end Portuguese rule in the south and eventually managed to convince the British East India Company to allow its ships to cooperate with