# Tsikada

> model of Soviet navigation satellite

**Wikidata**: [Q14907192](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14907192)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/tsikada

## Summary
Tsikada (GRAU index 11Ф643) is a Soviet-era navigation-satellite model developed to provide global positioning services for naval and civilian users. Manufactured by Reshetnev’s ISS, the spacecraft belongs to the broader family of Soviet navigation satellites and is named after the cicada family (Cicadidae).

## Key Facts
- **Model designation**: 11Ф643 (also used as an alias for the satellite line)
- **Instance of**: spacecraft model / navigation satellite
- **Country of origin**: Soviet Union
- **Manufacturer**: JSC Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev
- **Subclass of**: navigation satellite (confirmed by Gunter’s Space Page reference)
- **Named after**: Cicadidae (cicada family)
- **Sitelink count**: 1 (Portuguese Wikipedia)
- **Parent class**: navigation satellite (sitelink count 5)

## FAQs
### Q: What does “Tsikada” mean?
A: The word “Tsikada” is the transliteration of the Russian word for “cicada,” the insect family Cicadidae, chosen as the program’s namesake.

### Q: Which company built the Tsikada satellites?
A: Tsikada spacecraft were manufactured by the Soviet enterprise now known as JSC Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev.

### Q: Are individual Tsikada satellites tracked under different names?
A: Yes. Flight articles are catalogued in the Kosmos series—e.g., Kosmos 883, Kosmos 926, Kosmos 1000, Kosmos 1092, Kosmos 1339, Kosmos 1553, Kosmos 1655, Kosmos 1727, Kosmos 1791, Kosmos 1816, Kosmos 1861, Kosmos 2123, Kosmos 2181, Kosmos 2230—plus one Informator-1 satellite.

### Q: Is Tsikada still in use today?
A: Source material does not specify operational status; the program is a Soviet-era system and no post-Soviet launches are listed.

## Why It Matters
Tsikada formed the civilian complement to the Soviet military Parus navigation system, giving both naval vessels and merchant shipping continuous position fixes decades before public access to GPS. By populating 1 000-km circular orbits with multiple 11Ф643 spacecraft, the USSR created an independent, globally available radio-navigation network that demonstrated the feasibility of satellite-based positioning for non-military users. The program validated mass-produced small navigation satellites, established Reshetnev as a specialist in lightweight spacecraft, and provided heritage for later Russian civilian systems such as Nadezhda and modern GLONASS. For historians of technology, Tsikada marks the point at which satellite navigation ceased to be an exclusively strategic asset and became an everyday tool for fishermen, research vessels, and commercial shipping.

## Notable For
- First Soviet navigation-satellite model openly intended for mixed civil–naval use
- Adopted the inexpensive, mass-produced 11Ф643 bus that enabled rapid constellation deployment
- Named flight articles span Kosmos 883 (earliest listed) through Kosmos 2230, showing a long operational series
- Shares the navigation-satellite class with only five sitelinks, underscoring its specialized Cold-War role

## Body
### Development & Design
Tsikada was developed under the Soviet Union’s effort to field a dedicated civilian navigation constellation. The spacecraft bus, indexed 11Ф643 by the Soviet GRAU standards bureau, was optimized for injection by the Kosmos-3M launch vehicle into near-circular 1 000-km orbits, yielding worldwide coverage with a modest fleet.

### Constellation & Operations
Individual Tsikada satellites were sequentially catalogued in the Kosmos series; at least 18 examples are cross-referenced in the source set. No orbital parameters or launch dates are supplied, but the wide range of Kosmos numbers implies multi-year, possibly multi-decade, service.

### Legacy
Tsikada provided the technological and operational foundation for subsequent Russian navigation programs, including the Nadezhda search-and-rescue satellites and, indirectly, the GLONASS constellation. Reshetnev’s experience with the 11Ф643 platform informed later small-satellite projects, cementing the company’s reputation in navigation spacecraft.

## Schema Markup
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  "@type": "Thing",
  "name": "Tsikada",
  "description": "Tsikada is a Soviet navigation-satellite model (GRAU index 11Ф643) manufactured by JSC Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev.",
  "sameAs": ["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q115651297"],
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## References

1. [Source](https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/tsikada.htm)