Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been gradually developed and matured since its birth in 1950s. It has been widely used in different fields of society, and the major space agencies have gradually applied it into the space field. With the development and application of the intelligent technology, spacecrafts are gradually equipped with almost human-like behavior characteristics such as acquirement, recognition, planning, decision, control, execution, management and operation. Some spacecrafts even have group cooperation and other social characteristics, which significantly enhance the spacecraft abilities to cope with complex environment. In the paper, the connotation of intelligent spacecraft was discussed; the development course, the development characteristics and main application cases of the intelligent spacecraft were analyzed; and the development proposals for our intelligent spacecraft were put forward.