The Sovereign is a new aircraft that combines a slightly modified Citation X cabin, with a brand new wing. Cessna thought about designing an all new fuselage cross section for the Sovereign but decided instead to use the existing fuselage to keep down costs and reduce development time.
The Sovereign is equipped with two Pratt & Whitney PW-306C engines and has a new, swept supercritical wing. The Sovereign has a Honeywell Epic LCD avionics suite, TCAS and EGPWS.
The first flight of the prototype was made on February 27, 2002. Certification was obtained in 2004 and deliveries started shortly after that.