High temperature composites have been extensively developed in order to produce mainly thermal protection systems of reusable re-entry vehicles and launchers. This development effort covers all the aspects including sizing, design, manufacturing processes characterisation, non destructive inspection. And all industrial facilities have also been installed. Strong interest recently appeared for these materials to meet requirements applying for different space applications. In particular for more stringent optical payloads, needs of new materials with high performance requirements have appeared. In the field of high dimensionally stable structures for telescopes, materials have to meet severe requirements such as low coefficient of thermal expansion, good specific modulus, long term stability (moisture and chemical insensitivity), etc.... Carbon/carbon composites can meet these specifications. To demonstrate this capability a structure has been designed, manufactured and will be submitted to complete testing. (work supported by ESA/ESTEC) . The main available results (part feasibility, characterisations, analysis and stability performance budgets) are presented. For future telescope mirrors, silicon carbide is already known as a good candidate. But an innovative concept based on silicon carbide sandwich honeycomb technology which allows optimised design has been developed. First characterisation results and manufacturing capabilities are presented.
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