I've talked myself into thinking it's actually a pun. Ad astra per aspera is a set phrase in English, so any modification to it is punning the phrase. In this formulation, aquam still carries the original meaning of ardua, hardship. While this wouldn't be a pun to a native Latin speaker, I haven't met too many of them.

I kind of wish my work had mission patches like this, though "Deployed Client X" doesn't sound so dramatic.