The embodiment of the invention provides an information forwarding method and a space-based information network system. In the method, a reference satellite receives a destination address sent by first terminal equipment used as a sending end, respectively determines routing paths corresponding to various pre-stored routing policies, determines performance information required for reaching second terminal equipment by each routing path, which corresponds to the destination address and is used as a receiving end, and feeds back each routing policy and the corresponding routing path and performance information to the first terminal equipment, so that the first terminal equipment indicates a user to select a target routing policy from various routing policies according to the received performance information and sends a target routing path and a data packet to an origin satellite in the target routing path; the origin satellite receives the data packet and the target routing path which are sent by the first terminal equipment, and according to the target routing path, forwards the data packet to the second terminal equipment. The information forwarding method and the space-based information network system which are provided by the invention can fulfill the aim of forwarding information according to actual policy requirements of the user.