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Owing to a great decrease in size and weight, the pointing of microsatellite is vulnerable to disturbances and the uncertainty of moment-of-inertia variation. Mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// control, giving consideration to both stability robustness and root-mean-square (rms) performance, is an effective approach for attitude controller design of microsatellites in the face of exogenous disturbances and plant uncertainties. The paper applies a mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// controller to address a critical condition that during the translation thrusting the attitude of the microsatellite is affected by the unbalanced torque of coupled thrusters and the resulting variation of moment-of-inertia from operation mode switch. By using a linear matrix inequality method, the numerical solution of the mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// state-feedback controller can be efficiently solved. The results of an integrated test including reaction wheel dynamics prove that the mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// controller has satisfactory rms performance of pointing control and remarkable robustness to inertia matrix uncertainty by making a compromise between H/sub 2/ and H/sub /spl infin// costs.