The factor that is not needed when calculating the velocity of a satellite orbiting a planet is the mass of the satellite.
In orbital mechanics, the velocity of a satellite in a circular orbit can be calculated using the formula:
\[ v = \sqrt{\frac{GM}{r}} \]
where \( v \) is the orbital velocity, \( G \) is the universal gravitational constant, \( M \) is the mass of the planet, and \( r \) is the orbital radius (distance from the center of the planet to the satellite). The mass of the satellite does not appear in this equation, hence it is not needed for this calculation.
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