Patriot upgrade could attract new customers.

• Author: Versprille, Allyson

Several countries have expressed interest in procuring Raytheon's Patriot missile system after a showcase featured a number of upgrades, a company executive said.

During the March 17 test at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Patriot integrated air and missile defense system equipped with an enhanced suite of improvements known as post-deployment build 8 (PDB8] "successfully detected, tracked and engaged a threat-representative ballistic missile target," a Raytheon press release said. It destroyed the target by first firing a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile segment enhancement interceptor and, seconds later, a Guidance Enhanced Missile-tactical ballistic missile interceptor.

The test demonstrated that PDB-8 will enable commanders to optimize the right mix of missiles to defeat a variety of threats, said Jeff Pinasco, director for integrated air and missile defense business development at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

The upgrade includes modified software that improves Patriot's ability to destroy all threat categories and differentiate between friendly and enemy aircraft, he said in an email. There are also several hardware enhancements including a modern man station with new touch-screen technology and a processor with "significantly fewer parts, more computing power and reliability that is 40 percent higher than the old processor."

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Currently there are 13 users in the "Patriot partnership"--the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany...