The Legality and Compliance of Low-Orbit Mega-constellations as Military Targets

Currently, low-orbit mega-constellations have been fully utilized in military applications, but the standards for using them as military targets are still lacking, and international legal provisions are ambiguous. Existing theories are also unable to clearly define and distinguish the military applications of low-orbit mega-constellations. Whether low-orbit mega-constellations can be used as military targets should be considered from two aspects: whether they violate the principle of neutrality and whether they belong to weapon systems. Since the majority of the holders of mega-constellations are currently private space companies, which are not subjects of international law, the application of the principle of neutrality should be analyzed based on the impact of private company behavior on the neutrality of non-directly belligerent states. Regarding whether low-orbit mega-constellations belong to weapon systems, it should be observed from different application scenarios of mega-constellations and compared with the definition of weapon systems to ultimately define the boundary conditions for whether low-orbit mega-constellations belong to weapon systems in different scenarios.