CIRIR is designed as a resource center. It is an impact sample facility. It installs and curates a library of impact materials collected at Rochechouart. The CIRIR sample facility is inspired at a more modest scale, by the Lunar Sample Facility installed at NASA JSC in Houston for curating the samples returned from the Moon. CIRIR build up and curates samples returned from Rochechouart, and especially the cores from the 2017 Drilling Campaing at Rochechouart impact, a campaign designed and led by CIRIR in the sites of the National Reserve.
CIRIR is also a field studies facility. It is a base camp made available to scientists for ground truth data mining an impact crater. CIRIR provide logistical assistance, housing, field expertise and technical assistance for field studies, sampling, petrologic observation and sample preparation.
The CIRIR also a research program entity in charge of promoting and coordinating research on Rochechouart. It does not fund the research itself. The project leaders (PI) are responsible for raising the necessary resources for the realization of their projects, CIRIR provides the support for the research and the coordination, as NASA did with the international research on samples returned from the Moon. CIRIR do the same with samples “returned” from Rochechouart, starting with the material recovered from the drillings.