WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- Raytheon announced earlier this month it had carried out a successful test launch of the Missile Segment Enhancement version of the Patriot PAC-3 missile at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The test was carried out utilizing "a Patriot Configuration-3 fire unit with engineering upgrades to the Post Deployment Build-6 system software," the company said in a statement.

Raytheon said the operation was the second in a series of live-fire exercises planned to test the new MSE interceptor's performance parameters within the Patriot system.

"This test demonstrated the Patriot Configuration-3 flexibility to integrate new and evolving interceptors and expand the Patriot battle-space with minimal software and hardware changes to the ground system," said Sanjay Kapoor, vice president of Patriot Programs for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

"In support of the war fighter, Patriot continues to add capability to counter emerging threats, while providing increased system reliability and lowered life-cycle cost," he said.

Raytheon IDS is the prime contractor for the Patriot program and the system integrator for the PAC-3 MSE interceptor.

Raytheon describes the Patriot as the U.S. armed forces' only current land-based, short- to medium-range ballistic missile defense system in operational use and the U.S. Army's main theater air and missile defense system.

The Patriot system is a long-range, high-altitude, all-weather anti-aircraft and anti-missile battery of interceptors to defend against tactical ballistic missiles, jet and rotary wing aircraft and cruise missiles, the company said.

The Patriot PAC-3 MSE program is administered by the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space and is implemented by the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Project Office in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Dallas, is the prime contractor on the PAC-3 MSE interceptor program.

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Russians scrap 20 ICBMs under START-1

Russia's Strategic Missile Forces said earlier this month they have destroyed 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles and 12 mobile missile launchers since the beginning of this year.

"Since January 2008, the SMF have destroyed and sent for scrap about 20 ICBMs whose service life has expired," the SMF said in a statement June 9, according to a report from the RIA Novosti news agency. The ICBMs were decommissioned and destroyed for scrap under the provisions of the START-1 treaty that runs out on Dec. 6, 2009, the SMF said.

The SMF said in the same period of time they also destroyed 12 mobile missile launchers in compliance with START-1 under the close supervision of U.S. inspectors.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- START-1 -- was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, five months before the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism. However, the Russian Federation, as the main successor state to the Soviet Union, has inherited and implemented its obligations under the agreement.

The former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have all scrapped the entire nuclear weapons arsenals they inherited from the Soviet Union or sent the remaining weapons to Russia.

The United States and Russia have cut back the number of nuclear-capable strategic missiles to 1,600 each with a maximum of 6,000 warheads each.

RIA Novosti said Russia currently deploys 4,147 nuclear warheads on 848 delivery vehicles, and the United States still has 5,914 warheads on 1,225 delivery vehicles, according to the U.S.-based Arms Control Association.

Russia's SMF said in its statement that U.S. inspectors so far had carried out 340 inspections of ballistic missile launch sites in Russia since the START-1 treaty became operable on Dec. 5, 1994.