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) had disrupted the spice markets, and the Zamorin of Calicut had used his authority in the Kerala hinterlands to cut off the supply of pepper to the Portuguese-allied cities of Cochin and Cannanore. Nonetheless, attracted by profit, pepper ships from the Kerala backwaters continued arriving in Cochin. It is at this point that peace feelers were sent through the backchannels between the Zamorin and the Portuguese captain Francisco de Albuquerque. Some Portuguese chroniclers assert it was initiated by the Zamorin, alarmed at the erection of the fort and frustrated by his apparent inability to shut down the pepper supply to