Abstract: In order to identify the system level single point failure(SPF) which affects the mission of the spacecraft, an SPF identification method based on the critical incident is proposed and used in the rendezvous and docking (RVD) mission. In this method, the time domain and the space domain analyses of incident events, the fault tree analysis (FTA) and the failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) are integrated to identify the SPF. And then, the failure preconception in orbit or the quality control methods are applied to point to the equipment which has the SPF. The application results show that the SPF identification method is effective in the RVD mission and similar engineering projects.