Ganymede (moon) and possibly a JAXA-led Jupiter Magnetospheric Orbiter. ESA's contribution faced funding competition from other ESA projects, but on 2 May 2012 the European part of the mission, renamed Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), obtained a L1 launch slot in 2022 with an Ariane 5 in the ESA's Cosmic Vision science programme. The spacecraft will orbit Ganymede and conduct multiple flyby investigations of Callisto and Europa. The Russian Space Research Institute is currently evaluating the Ganymede Lander (GL) mission, with emphasis on astrobiology. The Ganymede Lander would be a partner mission for JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE). If selected, it would
Orbit of the Moon moves in its orbit around the common centre of gravity. The Sun's gravitational effect on the Moon is more than twice that of Earth's on the Moon; consequently, the Moon's trajectory is always convex (as seen when looking Sunward at the entire Sun–Earth–Moon system from a great distance outside Earth–Moon solar orbit), and is nowhere concave (from the same perspective) or looped. That is, the region enclosed by the Moon's orbit of the Sun is a convex set. Orbit of the Moon The Moon orbits Earth in the prograde direction and completes one revolution relative to the stars in about