Luna Probe Locations

None of the moon probes hit near the poles. In fact, the farthest from the equator was Surveyor 7, which soft-landed at about 41 deg S latitude, 10 deg W longitude in January 1968.

The Russians tended to shoot for the areas nearest the limbs. Some candidate sites for the Luna program, in order of the elevation of Earth above the horizon:

     Probe      Lat   Long   Launch Date  Landing
     -------   ----   ----   -----------  -------
     Luna  9    8 N   66 W    1-31-66     soft
     Luna  8    9 N   64 W   12-03-65     crash
     Luna 13   19 N   63 W   12-21-66     soft
     Luna 23   12 N   62 E   10-28-74     failed robot sampler
     Luna 24   12 N   62 E    8-09-76     3rd robot sample return
     Luna 15   16 N   60 E    7-13-69     crash
     Luna 18    3 N   58 W    9-02-71     crash
     Luna 20    3 N   58 W    2-14-72     2nd robot sample return
     Luna 16    2 S   57 W    9-12-70     1st robot sample return

Note that Luna 23 and 24 are fairly near the proposed site at 20 deg N latitude, 70 deg E longitude.