The Ultraviolet Type Ia Supernova CubeSat (UVIa): Science Motivation & Mission Concept
Abstract
The Ultraviolet (UV) Type Ia Supernova Mission (UVIa) is a CubeSat/SmallSat concept that stands to test critical space-borne UV technology for future missions like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) while elucidating long-standing questions about the explosion mechanisms of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). UVIa will observe whether any SNe Ia emit excess UV light shortly after explosion to test progenitor/explosion models and provide follow-up over many days to characterize their UV and optical flux variations over time, assembling a comprehensive multi-band UV and optical low-redshift anchor sample for upcoming high-redshift SNe Ia surveys (e.g., Euclid, Vera Rubin Observatory, Nancy Roman Space Telescope). UVIa's mission profile requires it to perform rapid and frequent visits to newly discovered SNe Ia, simultaneously observing each SNe Ia in two UV bands (FUV: 1500-1800A and NUV: 1800-2400A) and one optical band (u-band: 3000-4200A). In this study, we describe the UVIa mission concept science motivation and basic mission design. The UVIa mission concept has been submitted to the CubeSats category of the NASA ROSES Astrophysics Research & Analysis (APRA) program ($10M cost cap) and NASA Astrophysics Pioneers program ($20M cost cap).
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2502.11957,
title = {The Ultraviolet Type Ia Supernova CubeSat (UVIa): Science Motivation & Mission Concept},
author = {Keri Hoadley and Curtis McCully and Gillian Kyne and Fernando Cruz Aguirre and Moira Andrews and Christophe Basset and K. Azalee Bostroem and Peter J. Brown and Greyson Davis and Erika T. Hamden and Daniel Harbeck and John Hennessy and Michael Hoenk and Griffin Hosseinzadeh and D. Andrew Howell and April Jewell and Saurabh Jha and Jessica Li and Peter Milne and Leonidas Moustakas and Shouleh Nikzad and Craig Pellegrino and Abigail Polin and David J. Sand and Ken J. Shen and Lisa Storrie-Lombardi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.11957},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Published in JATIS under the call for papers "Ultraviolet Science & Instrumentation: On the Way to Habitable Worlds Observatory and Beyond"