A compact spatial heterodyne imaging spectrometer suitable for micro satellite platforms is designed. Two sets of interference structures are used to make the fringes localized outside the system. The imaging plane of front lens system and fringe localization of system are overlapped so that the spatial location information and the spectral information of target are obtained. According to the expression of axis optical field and Nyquist sampling theorem, the relationship between spectral resolution and spectral range and some critical parameters is given. Through the way of ray tracing, the theoretical proof of fringe localization is described in detail, and the universal function expression of instrument is derived. This compact spatial heterodyne imaging spectrometer for observation of O[1D]630nm airglow from satellite is designed and simulated. The spectral sampling interval of the system is 0.762 3 cm－1 and the spectral range is 601.674 9 ~631.324 6 nm. Finally, a compact spatial heterodyne imaging spectrometer is built to verify the results. And the target image and recovery spectrum of the 632.8nm laser source is obtained. The simulation and experimental results show that spectral sampling interval of the system achieve the design requirements, and the spectral is 20 822 at 630nm. The alignment error (±1°) of quarter-wave plate and polarizer has little influence on the modulation of fringes. It shows that the system has the imaging capabilities and spectral detectability, and can be used as a spatiotemporal mixed modulated spectrometer.