To meet the requirement of thrust vector technology,it’s notably important to produce a centrifuge which can provide desired changes of acceleration in different directions. For the objective above,a centrifuge motion simulator is designed as a 3-DOF manipulator with three rotational axes. A general kinematics model for the centrifuge simulator is established by two different methods,one is through method of motion synthesis and the other is by the matrix rotation method. The kinematics model obtained by the motion synthesis expresses the relationship between the acceleration and the angular velocities,as well as the e acceleration and the angular acceleration. The kinematics model based on the matrix rotation method can be used expediently to simulate the changes of displacement,velocity and acceleration of any point regarded. The kinematics models obtained by two different methods are the basis for the parameters of the centrifugal test.