Its mission is to counter all air threats to EADS' assigned Area of Operations through vigilant detection, rapid warning and precise tactical control of NORAD and NORTHCOM forces.

This includes a Canadian Forces detachment and US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration liaison officers.

[3] The wing operated a Manual Air Direction Center (MDC) at Roslyn AFS, New York.

The organization was in large part responsible for one of the foundational projects of the computer era: the development of the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) air defense system, from its first test at Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1951, to the installation of the first unit of the New York Air Defense Sector of the SAGE system, in 1958.

[4] Developed during the 1950s by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratories engineers and scientists for the U.S. Air Force, SAGE monitored North American skies for possible attack by crewed aircraft and missiles for twenty-five years.

Aside from its strategic importance, SAGE set the foundation for mass data-processing systems and foreshadowed many computer developments of the 1960s.

He described SAGE as, "A system centralizing many air defense functions, minimizing manual tasks and allowing electronic devices to perform hundreds of complex computations accurately and simultaneously to improve air defense capability."

But after the changeover, activated Guardsmen provided the command and staff for the Continental U.S. NORAD Region and its subordinate Sector HQs.

In addition to the Battle Control Center in Rome, NEADS helped establish and maintain two detachments in the National Capital Region to defend critical assets and improve interagency communication.

NEADS was officially re-designated the Eastern Air Defense Sector (EADS) on 15 July 2009.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency