Abrasive belt grinding, as a typical flexible-contact processing method, has increasing demands in the thin-walled aerospace components own to its advantages of high flexibility, adaptability, and good heat dissipation. Nowadays, due to the complex structures and hard-to-machining materials of workpieces, abrasive belt grinding faces several new challenges, and there have also been many advances in the equipment, processes, and mechanisms. This study introduces the latest research progresses on elastic contact modelling in grinding force and temperature, abrasive wear mechanism and its effects on surface quality of typical aerospace materials, intelligent detection and decision-making in the processing process, application of robotic processing. Besides, based on research trends and engineering practice experience, the main development trends of abrasive belt grinding are discussed.