The control problem of coordinated motion of a freefloating flexible space manipulator with external disturbance was discussed.With the assumed mode method,the relationship of system linear momentum conversation and the Lagrangian approach,the dynamic equation of the freefloating flexible space manipulator was established and then inverted to the state equation for control design.Based on the above results and the terminal sliding mode control (SMC) technique,a mathematical expression of the terminal sliding surface was proposed,and then the terminal SMC scheme of coordinated motion between the base’s attitude and the manipulator’s joints of the freefloating flexible space manipulator with external disturbance was developed.This proposed control scheme not only guarantees that the sliding phase of the closedloop system exists,but also ensures that the output tracking error converges to zero in finite time.In addition,because the initial state of system is always at the terminal sliding surface,the control scheme can eliminate the reaching phase of SMC and guarantee the global robustness and stability of the closedloop system.A planar freefloating flexible space manipulator with two links was simulated to verify the feasibility of the proposed control scheme.