Abstract: This paper is concerned with the control for planar, large angle rapid slew maneuvering of a flexible spacecraft ,consisting of a rigid central body and a flexible beam. A nonlinear infinite dimensional model of the system is derived. By using the measurements of the attitude angle of the rigid central body and its velocity only ,a kind of model following control law is presented. Based upon the LaSalle's invariance principle in infinite dimensional spaces, it is shown that implementation of the control algorithm results in asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Some experimental results are presented, showing the effectness of the designed control algorithm.