Their Kickstarter page says they're a husband and wife team (plus some help from freelancers and AI), so the latter outcome seems more likely than the former. They do intend to distribute the game for free, which... can work to avoid getting sued, but then there's all the money from the Kickstarter campaign.

I think it's a really cool project, and it's definitely the kind of thing I'd be interested in playing, but I would definitely hesitate to invest in the Kickstarer when a lawsuit seems pretty inevitable.

The ship is really Star Trek looking, truly, but it's getting replaced with a much less infringy looking one. We can all see this is the off brand version of the Star Trek game we wish we had, but they are very safe from a lawsuit. Once you get into it, you see enough of a difference that it's riffing on Star Trek, certainly, but it's still enough of its own thing. The new ship will really do this game a lot of favours in setting it apart instead of leaning into it.