This paper presents a new scheme for fault detection and isolation in a satellite system. The purpose of this paper is to develop detection, isolation and identification algorithms based on a cascade filter for both total and partial faults in a satellite attitude control system (ACS). The cascade filter consists of a decentralized Kalman filter (DKF) and a bank of interacting multiple model (IMM) filters. The cascade filter is utilized for detection and diagnosis of anticipated sensor and actuator faults in a satellite ACS. Other fault detection and isolation (FDI) schemes are compared with the proposed FDI scheme. The FDI procedure using a cascade filter was developed in three stages. In the first stage, two local filters and a master filter detect sensor faults. In the second stage, the FDI scheme checks sensor residuals to isolate sensor faults, and 11 Extended Kalman filters with actuator fault models detect wherever actuator faults occur. In the third stage of the FDI scheme, four filters identify the fault type, which is either a total or partial fault. An important feature of the proposed FDI scheme is that it can decrease fault isolation time and accomplish not only fault detection and isolation but also fault type identification using a scalar penalty in the conditional density function.