The ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in the original Star Trek television series, are still missing after being shot into a brief Earth orbit two weeks ago.

The canister containing the ashes, along with those of Nasa pioneer L. Gordon Cooper and 200 others, was sent up into low earth orbit on 28 April before re-entering the atmosphere and parachuting to Earth.

But after two weeks of searching the company that organised the flight has admitted that it cannot find the canister.

Celestis said that the canister's homing device is being shielded by the mountainous area of New Mexico into which it has fallen.

While the company has the location down to 400 metres that still leaves a lot of ground to cover. Today specialist teams will move in to try and find the human remains.

Celestis sells the space missions for between $495 and $1,495 depending on how much of the ashes people want to send. The remains spend around five minutes above the atmosphere before returning to Earth.