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) rather Vypin island, Cochin itself being a smoldering ruins). Receiving the alarming news at Cannanore, Francisco de Albuquerque wasted no time and rushed his fleet of eight ships - the three of the 5th Armada, the four caravels of the old coastal patrol plus Campo - down to relieve Cochin. Francisco de Albuquerque's makeshift squadron arrived at Cochin, to find the Trimumpara Raja and the Portuguese factor Diogo Fernandes Correia once again holed up in Vypin island, besieged by the armies of Calicut. Seeing the approaching fleet, the besieging army began to dissolve. Fearing Portuguese retribution, the auxiliary troops (of