The observation of trans-iron nuclei in galactic cosmic rays (Z30) requires a high performance cosmic ray detector telescope with a very large exposure area because of their extremely low fluxes. It is realized by the use of solid-state track detector of CR-39, which has an advantage of easy extension of exposure area. The verification of mass and nuclear charge identifications with CR-39 solid-state track detector newly developed for the observation of heavy cosmic ray particles has been made using Fe ions from NIRS-HIMAC. Mass and charge resolutions for Fe nuclei are found to be ~0.22 amu and 0.22 cu in rms, respectively. Moreover, it is necessary to raise the Z/detection threshold in order to suppress background tracks produced by galactic cosmic rays with Z/<30. The new track detectors of copolymers of CR-39 and DAP (diallyl phthalate) have been developed and verified their performances. From the point of view of stability for the cosmic ray exposure environment such as temperature and vacuum in space, newly BP-1 glass detector with high sensitivity is also currently under development. The combination of such solid-state track detector with the high speed scanning system enables us to realize a large-scaled observation for trans-iron galactic cosmic rays.

Proceedings of the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference; Rogelio Caballero, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Gustavo Medina-Tanco, Lukas Nellen, Federico A. Sánchez, José F. Valdés-Galicia (eds.); Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008; Vol. 2 (OG part 1), pages 425-428