RAF Ascension Island

RAF Ascension
Wideawake Airbase/Field
Georgetown in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
FHAW Shown within Atlantic Ocean
Coordinates	07°58′10″S 014°23′38″W / 7.96944°S 14.39389°W / -7.96944; -14.39389Coordinates: 07°58′10″S 014°23′38″W / 7.96944°S 14.39389°W / -7.96944; -14.39389
Type	Royal Air Force station
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	Royal Air Force / Serco
Website	www.ascension-flights.com/ascension-flights-info.htm
Site history
Built	1939 (1939)
In use	1939 – present
Airfield information
Identifiers	IATA: ASI, ICAO: FHAW
Elevation	85 metres (279 ft) AMSL
Runways Direction Length and surface 13/31 3,054 metres (10,020 ft) Asphalt
No Instrument landing system (ILS)

RAF Ascension (IATA: ASI, ICAO: FHAW) (more commonly known as RAF Ascension Island, and sometimes known as Wideawake Airfield or Ascension Island Base), is a British Royal Air Force station on Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Equator.

In 1939 Ascension became important as a HF/DF radio station covering trade routes. The first aircraft to land on Ascension Island was a Fairey Swordfish from HMS Archer in 1942.

Wideawake Airfield (named for a noisy colony of sooty terns nearby) was a World War II US military installation built in 1943 by arrangement with the British government. The airfield was built using a US task force and went on to be used by more than 25,000 aircraft as a staging point during the war. The airfield was abandoned at the end of the war and fell into disuse.

Ascension Island Auxiliary Field was being built by 181 men from Saint Helena for the United States Air Force (USAF) by 1957 (official activation as a satellite of Patrick Air Force Base in Florida was on 25 June 1956.)

The Target Tracking Radar Station was a Nike Zeus test facility for tracking reentry vehicles from Cape Canaveral missile launches. Built from 1960-1961 for anti-ballistic missile measurement, the "Golf Ball" was on Cat Hill, and a collimation tower for radar calibration was towards English Bay.

The NASA Tracking Station at Devil's Ashpit and the Cable & Wireless Earth Station at Donkey Plain were built in the mid-1960s for space operations and communications, including the latter's use for transmitting "microwave borne data via the Early Bird Satellite back to the NASA facility at Andover, Maine."