The invention discloses a symmetric force finding method of a prestressed cable rod structure, and belongs to the field of the design of modern space structures. The method comprises the steps that 1, a force equilibrium matrix is set up, and symmetric subspaces corresponding to an external load vector and an internal force vector are set up respectively; 2, a first partition submatrix of the symmetric type equilibrium matrix is calculated; 3, a holohedric self-stress mode is solved; 4, whether the holohedric self-stress mode is an untrivial solution or not is judged, and if the holohedric self-stress mode is a zero solution, a geometric structure is redesigned; 5, an initial prestress combination coefficient is determined; 6, whether the set-up prestressed cable rod structure meets the stability conditions or not is judged, if the structure is stable, a symmetric force finding result is output, the symmetric force finding process is finished, and otherwise, the last step is executed again to seek an initial prestress distribution scheme again.