Satellite orbit measurement based on ground station, such as USB and VLBI, is restricted in its observation arcs. In addition, the long distance of deep space explorer mission forms a new challenge to current satellite TT&C system. If the satellite can estimate its position by its own CCD camera, the time and distance constraints will be eliminated. With a view of this, a vision-based position estimation method for satellite was proposed. It registered satellite image with a reference image and then estimated the satellite’s position according to photogrammetry. An experiment using the image, orbit data of space mission was conducted. By mutually verifying the vision method and the traditional method, it illustrates the effectiveness and accuracy. Our vision-based position estimation method is a good complement to the traditional method; it can save work of ground observation stations and have a promising application prospect in deep space exploration.