Devil's Ashpit

From Wikishire
Revision as of 21:53, 8 July 2016 by Owain (Talk | contribs) (Space and scouts)

Jump to: navigation, search
Devil's Ashpit
St Helena, Ascension
and Tristan da Cunha
Ascension Island
Summit: 1,759 feet 7°57’17"S, 14°19’41"W

The Devil's Ashpit is a hill of 1,759 feet on the east side of Ascension Island (northernmost of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha). It is in the south-east of the island, at the end of a long road across the island from Georgetown.

The hill is to the east of the island's highest hill, Green Mountain, and joined to it by a long ridge.

Space and scouts

Until 1990, NASA maintained a base here known as 'Deep Space Station, Ascension Island', which was a tracking station used for monitoring spaceflights, as part of the NASA Deep Space Center. In particular the base at Devil's Ashpit monitored early moonshots.[1]

Today the site has become the Challenger Outward Bound Centre, used by Boy Scouts.

References

  1. Ascension Island Tracking Station (pub. Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, Canbarra)