Additionally, Comic Con attendees were shown footage of a test flight of the newest spacecraft for the series, called the U.S.S. Discovery, although the design isn't final; the clip was created in a rush for Comic Con.

Producer Bryan Fuller has announced that his upcoming CBS All Access series “Star Trek: Discovery” is set to have a female lead, a role that he adds could potentially go to a woman of color as reportedly all women seen for the role so far have been either African American or Hispanic.

CBS Television Studios is in the process of casting the role so sadly there was no announcement of who will be involved in the show at today’s CBS presentation during the Television Critics Association summer press tour. Fuller did confirm that the series will be about an event in Trek history that has been talked about but never fully explored, and that the new series is set “a decade before Kirk, and will bridge the gap between Enterprise and the original series… we’re most closer to Kirk’s mission and get to play with that iconography.”

He confirmed the more serialised nature of the show saying that “we’re telling a Star Trek novel over 13 episodes,” and that there will be an openly gay character.

So far the various Trek series have had numerous female starship captains in guest star or recurring roles, while Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Kathryn Janeway “Star Trek: Voyager” became the franchise’s first female lead. Avery Brooks’ Captain Benjamin Sisko on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” was the first African American to lead a “Star Trek” series. A non-white female lead however has not been done on Trek before and it has been confirmed the lead role in ‘Discovery’ is human, but not a captain.

Shooting on the series is set to begin in two months under the helm of David Semel, with make-up tests currently underway – check out one that Fuller tweeted about this week. The first episode is slated to premiere in January.