Located in Admiralty Bay (Portuguese: Baía do Almirantado), King George Island (Portuguese: Ilha do Rei George), near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 130 km north of the peninsula, the station began operating on 6 February 1984, brought to Antarctica in modules by the oceanographic ship Barão de Teffé and several other Brazilian naval ships.

The station was named after Navy Commander Luís Antônio de Carvalho Ferraz, a hydrographer and oceanographer who visited Antarctica twice on British vessels.

He was instrumental in persuading his country's government to develop an Antarctic program, and died suddenly in 1982 while representing Brazil at an oceanographic conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[6] The Brazilian government released U$20 million for the construction of 1,000 square metres (11,000 sq ft) of emergency modules to temporarily house researchers until a permanent station had been built.

[12] The opening ceremony, originally scheduled to take place on 14 January, was postponed until the following day due to inadequate weather conditions hampering the transport of dignitaries from Punta Arenas, Chile, to Antarctica.

[n 1] The main objective of the Brazilian Antarctic program lies on climate change research, such as global warming, the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and the rising level of the oceans.