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 the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family. Afonso arranged for the shipping of many Órfãs d'El-Rei to Portuguese Malacca. On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King