To take advantage of the reaction flywheel to build an attitude control system for a small satellite,a semi-physical simulation plate system was designed based on the xPC real-time environment, single-axis air-bearing platform, attitude control computer, optical fiber gyro and reaction flywheel. With the system, a semi-physical simulation was verified for the small satellite control maneuver mode concerned to the reaction flywheel. The results of the simulation indicate that small-satellite attitude is maneuvered 31.57° within 50 s in better pointing accuracy and stability. The conclusion shows that according to the characteristics of the gyroscope and the reaction flywheel, the designed algorithm can meet the requirement of the maneuver on the small-satellite attitude control.