A recoil detector will be installed surrounding the internal gas target of the HERMES experiment at DESY. The recoil detector will improve the selection of exclusive events by a direct measurement of the momentum and track direction of the recoiling particle. The innermost layer of this recoil detector is a new silicon strip detector (SSD). Since Monte Carlo simulations predict proton momenta as low as 100 MeV/c, the SSD will be placed inside the HERA vacuum. A new setup of the electronics enables a dynamic range from below 4 fC at a signal-to-noise ratio of 6.8 up to 270 fC. In this paper, the assembly of the first module and the final setup within the HERMES experiment will be presented. Results from charge-injection tests of a prototype module are given.