They have said it takes about 3% of the stage's propellant load. They further say recovery systems (mostly legs and fins) and propellant reduces orbital payload

They have said it takes about 3% of the stage's propellant load. They further say recovery systems (mostly legs and fins) and propellant reduces orbital payload by about 30%, but that their advertised capacity is already 30% under maximum performance to allow them the margin to experiment with recovery systems. The numbers are all kind of old and fuzzy, but should give you the idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_development_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_reusable_launch_system_d...