14.46. As the economic desirability of extending the operating lifetime of existing plants became recognized, a longer view for nuclear plant main­tenance has been adopted. Rather than merely meeting regulatory re­quirements on an operating cycle-by-operating cycle basis, utilities have implemented aggressive long-term maintenance programs to avoid age — related degradation of safety-related systems, structures, and components. Such life-cycle management programs have as their objective the contin­uation of an “as new” plant condition so that a 20-year operating license extension can be applied for some years before the current 40-year license expires.