Shape memory polymer is a novel smart material,epoxy resin is an important family of shape memory polymer.It has been widely used in space deployable structure based on its excellent performance.It′s carried out that the curing agent has a influence on epoxy resin,s thermal,mechanical and shape memory effect,however,as the epoxy′s biggest weakness is the poor toughness,after the curing they are brittle,when the benging is below its glass transition temperature,then brittle farcture occurs,and the different methods on toughening epoxy resin are also illustrated emphasisly.The future development of epoxy resin and the perspective of epoxy resin are propesed.