Abstract: The statistical analysis of the remote sensing satellite on-orbit failure data from 1988 to 2014 shows that the control subsystem, the payload subsystem, the measurement and control subsystem, and the digital subsystem have higher failure rate than the other subsystems, the on-orbit failure occurs mainly in the first operating year, the environmental failure, the design failure and the device failure are the main on-orbit failure types, the on-orbit failure can be identified by the autonomous diagnosis and the ground operation, and different systems have different failure characteristics. In the end, some on-orbit failure countermeasures are suggested to reduce the failure rate and enhance the reliability.