Wiktionary
n. An island in the South Atlantic that is a British dependency of Saint Helena.
Wikipedia
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around from the coast of Africa and from the coast of Brazil, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, some to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.
The island is named after the day of its recorded discovery, Ascension Day. It played a role as an important safe haven and coaling station to mariners and for commercial airliners during the days of international air travel by flying boats. During World War II it was an important naval and air station, especially providing antisubmarine warfare bases in the Battle of the Atlantic. Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty from 22 October 1815 to 1922.
The island is the location of RAF Ascension Island, which is a Royal Air Force station with a United States Air Force presence, a European Space Agency rocket tracking station, an Anglo-American signals intelligence facility and the BBC World Service Atlantic Relay Station. The island was used extensively 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. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the United States Air Force operate 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.
Usage examples of "ascension island".
After they were returned, we kept you under surveillance for some weeks, watched the abstraction of the Ascension Island paper, the passing of it to Benotti and thence to Marais.
After all, as Worrall pointed out, they needed to be able to repair these machines when they were posted out on Ascension Island.
Sitting almost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, between Africa and Brazil, is a speck of rock named Ascension Island.
Other creatures swam: Westward currents could carry leatherback turtles across the Pacific from their feeding ranges near Ascension Island to breeding grounds in the Caribbean.
The Darling Downs hopping mouse, Chatham Islands swan, Ascension Island flightless crake, at least five types of large turtle, and many others are forever lost to us except as names.
If it's a full test, they'll be firing toward Ascension Island---about five thousand miles east.
If it's a full test, they'll be firing toward Ascension Island–.
Planes arrived for Milo from airfields in Italy, North Africa and England, and from Air Transport Command stations in Liberia, Ascension Island, Cairo, and Karachi.