MSX offered the first system demonstration of technology in space to identify and track ballistic missiles during their midcourse flight phase.

MSX's mission was to gather data in three spectral bands (long wavelength infrared, visible, and ultraviolet).

Lottie Williams was exercising in a park in Tulsa on January 22, 1997, when she was hit in the shoulder by a 15-centimetre (6 in) piece of blackened metallic material.

Engineers solved the problem by having MSX fire projectiles of known composition in front of the detector, and calibrating the instruments to the known black-body curves of the objects.

The MSX calibration serves as the basis for other satellites working in the same wavelength range, including AKARI (2006-2011) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST).