UVIa: a cubesat to explore type Ia supernovae in the UV

Despite their success in cosmology, details about the progenitor systems of type Ia supernova (SNe Ia) remain elusive. The UV is one of the most promising wavebands to provide breakthroughs in the physics of SNe Ia. Here we present a mission concept to study SNe Ia from the bluest optical wavelengths through the far-UV providing constraints on the presence of helium in the ejecta, near-UV excesses due to non-degenerate companion donor stars, and UV data to calibrate low redshift training samples for cosmological analyses. This mission will pave the way for the future of time-domain followup from small satellites.