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
Afonso de Albuquerque Rome, nor Alexander was able to see the fabled regions of the East Pacific. Afonso de Albuquerque became the first European to reach the Spice Islands. Upon discovering the Malay Archipelago, he proceeded in 1511 to conquer Malacca, then commissioned an expedition under the command of António de Abreu and Vice-Commander Francisco Serrão (the latter being a cousin of Magellan) to further explore the extremities of the region in east Indonesia. As a result of these voyages of exploration, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to discover and to reach the fabled Spice Islands in the Indies in addition to