Japan's Diet approved a law on general principles for the use of space Wednesday, allowing non-aggressive military use of space Wednesday and overturning a decades-old policy of limiting space development to peaceful uses.

Under the law, the use and exploitation of space should be conducted to serve the security of Japan, relaxing the principle of nonmilitary use based on a parliamentary resolution in 1969 under the war-renouncing Constitution.

Analysts say that the new law changes Japan's policy of space use to "non-aggression" from "non-military" and would allow Japan's military to launch its own surveillance satellites and an early-warning satellite.