The space optical turntable serves as a pivotal element in critical space tasks. The control of space optical turntables presents significant challenges due to the presence of multiple interference factors, such as nonlinear frictional forces, cable-drag torques, cogging torque variations and so on. Traditional control methodologies prove insufficient in concurrently guaranteeing the turntable's superior dynamic performance and achieving ultra-low tracking errors. This paper presents a novel composite control strategy integrating feedforward control and sliding mode control. Rigorous simulation and experimental analyses reveal that, in contrast to the traditional PID control approach, the tracking error of the proposed control scheme is significantly mitigated from 200 μrad to less than 20 μrad. Moreover, during dynamic maneuvering, the system demonstrates complete suppression of overshoot, and the rise time is reduced from0.4s to 0.2s, indicating a significant improvement of space optical turntable performance.