Abstract: With the development of technologies for minisatellites and constellations, the mode of the control and management system for minisatellite systems and constellations is evolving towards a new type of intelligent and autonomous ones from the traditional control and management sytem which is mainly governed by the ground control station. In this paper, some features and potentials of minisatellite systems and constellations are detailed at first, then the necessity and advantages as well as the technical feasibility of implementing intelligent autonomous control and management are discussed in depth, then based on the organic combination of hybrid control system (HCS) theory with multi-agent system (MAS) technology a kind of architecture of intelligent autonomous control system for minisatellite systems and constellation is proposed, which is characterized by high level autonomy, flexibility and reliability in its performances. At the same time, the synthetic optimizing design strategy and algorithms for this kind of autonomous intelligent control system are studied. At last with such an organizing architecture and corresponding control strategies, a computer simulation for the intelligent and autonomous orbit keeping of the formation flight for a satellite group that includes two minisatellites is presented and the result is satisfactory.