The software-based satellite simulator has been developed from the start of the project to resolve the restriction and limitation of using hardware-based software development platform. It enables the development of flight software to be performed continuously since initial phase. The satellite simulator emulates the on-board computer, I/O modules, electronics and payloads, and it can be easily adapted and changed on hardware configuration change. It supports the debugging and test facilities for software engineers to develop flight software. Also the flight software can be loaded without any modification and can be executed as faster than real-time. This paper presents the architecture and design of software-based GEO satellite simulator which has hot-standby redundancy mechanism, and flight software development and test under this environment.