Abstract This paper addresses the problem of uncertain fuzzy intermittent extended dissipative control to stabilize the flexible spacecraft (FS). However, to the systems with actuator random failures, input saturation and Bernoulli stochastic distribution by utilizing a novel switching Lyapunov function method. Compared with the existing common Lyapuonv function, the proposed approach is convenient for us to exploit more information of switching interval. Especially, the condition that control length and control period must be a certain proportion in the previous works of intermittent control strategy is removed in this work, which promotes the obtained criterion to be less conservative. Numerical simulations are finally given to demonstrate the validity and superiority of the theoretical results.