To satisfy the essential needs, including energy requirements, for human and robotic space explorations on planetary objects like Moon, Mars and asteroids, the proper exploitation of resources available in-situ represents a crucial issue. Along this line, the present work investigates the potential of a sintered lunar regolith simulant (JSC-1A) for possible solar energy harvesting and thermal energy storage applications. Regolith simulant powders are first consolidated by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) at 700 and 900 °C to produce bulk samples with different relative densities, i.e. 86 and 98%, respectively, and surface porosities. Negligible changes from the compositional point of view are induced by SPS at 700 °C, whereas a decrease of the original glassy phase content is observed when operating at 900 °C. The optical properties of sintered samples and pristine regolith powders are compared, considering the spectral absorptance/emittance, the integrated solar absorptance and the integrated thermal emittance estimated in a temperature range representative for the ISRU application, i.e. from 100 to 1300 K. We found that sintering changes the optical properties of regolith in a process-dependent way, with an increased solar absorptance and thermal emittance shown by sintered pellets with respect to pristine powders.

为满足人类和机器人在月球、火星和小行星等行星物体上进行太空探索的基本需求，包括能源需求，适当利用就地可用资源代表了一个至关重要的问题。沿着这条线，目前的工作研究了烧结月球风化层模拟物 (JSC-1A) 在可能的太阳能收集和热能存储应用中的潜力。Regolith 模拟粉末首先通过火花等离子烧结 (SPS) 在 700 和 900 °C 下固结，以生产具有不同相对密度（即分别为 86% 和 98%）和表面孔隙率的大块样品。从组成的角度来看，SPS 在 700 °C 下引起的变化可以忽略不计，而在 900 °C 下操作时观察到原始玻璃相含量的降低。考虑到光谱吸收率/发射率，比较了烧结样品和原始风化层粉末的光学性质，