In an experiment at the external COSY beam associated strangeness prod
uction will be investigated 1! by measuring total and differential cr
oss sections as well as the polarization of the produced hyperons by m
eans of an almost 4pi time-of-flight spectrometer. In a first step we
will concentrate on the reaction pp --> KLAMBDAp. The apparatus will c
onsist of an inner arrangement as start detector and highly granulated
scintillator hodoscopes as stop detector. Both parts give information
on multiplicity and allow to identify the interesting reaction by mea
ns of the delayed charged decay of the LAMBDA. Moreover the tracks of
all prompt and delayed reaction products can be reconstructed with hig
h precision. The detector allows the momentum measurement by time-of-f
light. To get all this information the inner detector is composed of t
iny granulated plastic scintillator detectors, silicon microstrip devi
ces and a scintillating fibre hodoscope. The outer detector barrel wit
h a diameter of about 3 m and a length of about 7.5 m will consist of
three layers of plastic scintillator slabs, two of them bended in heli
x form. The status of the experiment will be presented. Moreover the r
esults of test measurements for the different detector components will
be discussed together with Monte Carlo calculations.