COURTESY BY: https://www.hindustantimes.com/ China on Thursday launched its first independent Mars probe, a milestone in the country’s ambitious space programme which aims to have a space station by 2022. If successful, the probe, named Tianwen-1 – which in Mandarin means “Questions to Heaven” – will join an international community of explorers on Mars, comprising the US, Europe, Russia, India, and soon the UAE which launched a mission to the red planet on July 20. The launch was planned for years but comes in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which China…