The "Nello Carrara" Institute of Applied Physics (IFAC) is part of the National Research Council, the largest research organization in Italy. IFAC carries out research on: 1) Space: astrodynamics is devoted to study long term evolution and impact risk of spacecraft, space debris and asteroids in the Solar System. 2) Aerospace and Earth observation: innovative passive and active (e.g. LIDAR and SAR) aerospace instrumentation for remote sensing from optical to microwave frequencies, together with advanced methods and algorithms for processing of remotely sensed data.