Aquila Program

The Aquila Program was KASA's second manned mission program, and served as an intermediate step between the Vega Program, and the succeeding Orion Program. In many ways, the Aquila Program marked the point where KASA's development started to surpass Roskosmos, much to Roskosmos's displeasure.

The Aquila program used the new Aquila Capsule, launched primarily from the top of the Trojan II Rocket.

Aquila 1
Aquila 1 was the first Suborbital Test Flight of the Aquila Capsule. Launched on top of a Trojan I rocket, the Aquila was not anticipated to reach orbit. During Aquila 1, the Aquila Capsule reached a max apogee of 184000m, and endured reentry speeds of 1800m/s.

To best exemplify the Capsule's ability to handle reentry, the retrograde engines were actually functional, and used to push the capsule into a higher orbit. However, there was several things learned from the flight. During the retrograde engine firing, it was discovered that the fuel needed was way less then anticipated, which would be reduced in future flights.

Additionally, the parachute deployed at an alarmingly low altitude of 1000m, requiring a higher jettison.

Finally, after touching down in the ocean, the capsule deployed its flotation bags. However, two of the bags did not deploy properly. Regardless, the capsule remained buoyant enough to be recovered.

Aquila 2
Aquila 2 was originally supposed to be a suborbital flight comparable to Aquila 1. During this flight, the Aquila capsule was launched without its heavy service module or reentry engines, which allowed the Trojan I rocket to put the Aquila 2 capsule into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 312000m.

With this, the decision was made to do a "One Orbit Around" Mission, which put the Aquila Capsule to its limits. While some engineers wanted to keep the Aquila Capsule in space to test its durability, without the fuel cells in the Service module, the Aquila Capsule's batteries would not last long enough.

During the actual ascent, the T2 upperstage actually suffered from a sticky fuel valve which led to the high orbit it achieved. It shut off approximately 15 seconds after it was originally supposed to, which led to a much higher orbit then intended, and put the mission in danger of not having enough fuel to perform a reentry.

While the reentry burn was less then satisfactory, the aero-forces on the capsule managed to brake the capsule. The Capsule once again suffered a failure of two of its flotation balloons, the same ones that had failed to deploy on Aquila 1. This resulted in a mild redesign of the system.

Aquila 3
Aquila 3 was the first mission with Kerbalnauts on-board. Kerbalnaut Jebidiah Kerman served as the Pilot, while Bill Kerman served as Engineer. Aquila 3 was to be the first rocket launch onboard a Trojan II, launching with 2 SRBs attached to the side.

After liftoff, the SRBs were only intended to get the rocket up to about 10km, before being launched. At around 9km, the Trojan II started tipping over so that the boosters would land in the ocean off of KSC. However, after Jettisoning the SRBs, the rocket continued to tip over and started to enter a spin state. Realizing the rocket was lost, the Abort System was triggered and the Aquila III capsule safely jettisoned away from the failing rocket. The Trojan II vehicle continued to spin out of control until it impacted into the ocean.

In light of this failure, the Trojan II with the SRB configuration was scrapped as the Aquila Launch vehicle, and the Trojan II "Heavy" Configuration was selected. Another failure of the flight was the once again failure of 4 of the flotation balloons to deploy. The 2 that did deploy caused the capsule to roll onto its face where the Kerbalnauts had no escape.

Another failure was that the parachute did not properly deploy at first, and required Jeb' to manually eject it, due to a failure in the abort logic.

They had to wait until a rescue ship turned the capsule over before they could escape the capsule. In light of this close call, it was decided the flotation balloons were scrapped all together and the capsule would have to float by itself.

Aquila 4
After the failure of Aquila 3, Aquila 4 was delayed substantially as kinks with the system were sorted. The astronauts from Aquila 3, Jeb and Bill Kerman, were then assigned to Aquila 4.

Aquila 4 launched on the top of the Trojan II Heavy. While the heavy was overcompensating for such a small spacecraft, after the failure of Aquila 3, KASA was unwilling to put crew on SRB powered Trojans.

Aquila 4 was to largely follow the mission profile of Aquila 3, with the included bonus of KASA's first EVA. This took place on Aquila 4's 3rd orbit, above the KSC. Jebediah Kerman exited the Aquila 4 capsule, and went on EVA for 12 minutes, circulating the craft, before reentering the capsule.

Aquila 4 completed 4 orbits of Kerbin, spending 12 hours in space, before reentering the atmosphere where it splashed down in the Pakifik Ocean. The capsule was forced to remain closed, because after the failure of the flotation balloons to deploy on previous missions, it was decided that the astronauts would just have to wait to be retrieved before exiting the capsule.

Aquila 5:
-12 Day duration (duration of Orion Missions)

-Used fuel Cells

Aquila 6:
-First orbital rendezvous with Rigel target Vehicle launched by a Trojan I to MKO

Aquila 7:
Direct ascent Rigel rendezvous

Aquila 8:
-Double Rendezvous

-Meet with Aquila 8 Rigel in LKO, use this stage to boost to second Rigel from Aquila 6

-EVA to second Rigel

Aquila 9:
-rendezvous between two Aquila spacecraft (Aquila 9a, and Aquila 9b)

Advanced Aquila Program
After the conclusion of initial Aquila program, delays with the Orion Program led to the demand for an interim testing solution. While Aquila V had demonstrated Kerbal's ability to stay in space for the time necessary to perform a Mun mission, there was desire to perform more experimental missions.

Due to delays with the Mercury Capsule, the decision was made to start work on the Advanced Aquila Program. This would require no changes to the capsule itself, only requiring the launch vehicle to be more powerful. As such, the Advanced Aquila Program used new Trojan III rockets.

Aquila X:
Aquila X was the first unmanned test mission of the Advanced Aquila Program, and sought to understand the ability of the Aquila Capsule to survive a Trans-lunar orbit. To avoid communication issues being behind the Mun, the decision was made to launch the Aquila into the highly elliptical orbit that would be needed to take the Aquila to the Mun.

Aquila X was launched on top of a Artemis II Rocket at KSC. During the first half of the flight, Aquila X performed nominally, reaching a maximum apogee 12.5 million km. However, during the return trip, immediately after separation from the Service Module to perform a retrograde burn, communication with the capsule did not occur, while the Service Module continued to communicate for several hours.

Later analysis of the data seems to point to the cause being the battery's of the Aquila not functioning. It's unknown if they were not hooked up properly, or something else. The Service Module was used to monitor the general orbit of the Aquila Capsule, and the service module eventually decayed 4 months later.