  Since May 2011 the AMS-02 experiment is installed on the International Space
Station and is observing cosmic radiation. It consists of several
state-of-the-art sub-detectors, which redundantly measure charge and energy of
traversing particles. Due to the long exposure time of AMS-02 of many years the
measurement of momentum for protons and ions is limited systematically by the
spatial resolution and magnetic field strength of the silicon tracker. The
maximum detectable rigidity for protons is about 1.8~TV, for helium about
3.6~TV. We investigate the possibility to extend the range of the energy
measurement for heavy nuclei ($Z\geq2$) with the transition radiation detector
(TRD). The response function of the TRD shows a steep increase in signal from
the level of ionization at a Lorentz factor $\gamma$ of about 500 to
$\gamma\approx20000$, where the transition radiation signal saturates. For
heavy ions the signal fluctuations in the TRD are sufficiently small to allow
an energy measurement with the TRD beyond the limitations of the tracker. The
energy resolution of the TRD is determined and reaches a level of about 20\%
for boron ($Z=5$). After adjusting the operational parameters of the TRD a
measurement of boron and carbon could be possible up to 5~TeV/nucleon.
