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
NRP Afonso de Albuquerque (1934) The remainder was sold as scrap. NRP Afonso de Albuquerque (1934) The NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque" was a warship of the Portuguese Navy, named after the 16th-century Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque. She was destroyed in combat on 18 December 1961, defending Goa against the Indian Armed Forces invasion. The ship was the first of the "Afonso de Albuquerque" class, which also included the NRP "Bartolomeu Dias". These ships were classified, by the Portuguese Navy, as "avisos coloniais de 1ª classe" (1st class colonial aviso or sloop) and were designed to maintain a Portuguese naval presence in the Overseas territories