The past few decades have witnessed the prosperous development of high-quality control techniques for the unmanned flight systems [1, 2]. Particularly, spacecraft control technology has received considerable attention owing to its great potential in space maneuvers applications [3–5]. The spacecraft formation flying (SFF) systems that made up of multiple spacecraft have been a fascinating research topic in the aerospace engineering, owing to its greater system feasibility and robustness, improved flexibility and lower mission performing costs. Compared with the traditional single spacecraft, the SFF systems possess a broader application prospects in the field of space science and provide the possibility to complete the arduous space exploration missions. However, the spacecraft are highly nonlinear and often affected by internal uncertainties and external disturbances. Therefore, high-precision formation tracking for the SFF system is still the primary challenge for the research community. Additionally, connectivity maintenance and collision avoidance during the formation maneuvering process are also worthy of further study [6, 7].