Abstract: The control drum system is important for power regulation and emergency shutdown of the space nuclear power plant. The safety of the reactor directly depends on whether the control drum system can operate well or not. In order to check whether the control drum system can meet the design requirements, it is necessary to carry out the performance test of the system under high temperature. The full-scale model of the control drum system was selected as the target of the hot performance test. The specific hot performance test facility was designed and installed. On the basis of the facility, series of testing, research and analysis were carried out, such as whole route reciprocating motion testing, motor switch testing and scram testing, etc. The results show that the full-scale model of the control drum system operates normally and has no abnormal sound and stuck or stagnation, and scram time meets the design target. However, there are some phenomena such as angle stagnation, low position accuracy during the restoration and lacking strength during small angle scram in the termination of the transmission chain. The mechanical design of the control drum system basically meets the functional requirements, which lays the foundation of the optimization and finalization of the control drum system in the next stage.