Elon Musk shares new photos of Falcon Heavy Rocket

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is almost fully assembled, and Elon Musk has the pictures to prove it.

On Wednesday, SpaceX's founder shared a series of images of the company's biggest rocket on Twitter. The images showcase the new rocket from a trio of angles.

SpaceX touts the Falcon Heavy as the "world's most powerful rocket."

Musk captioned the photos: "Falcon Heavy at the Cape." The Cape is Cape Canaveral, the location of one of the company's three orbital launch sites.

Falcon Heavy at the Cape pic.twitter.com/hizfDVsU7X

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2017

The Falcon Heavy is essentially a trio of Falcon 9 cores bound together. The three rocket engines can generate 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff -- equivalent to eighteen 747 aircraft.

The three thrusters went through testing earlier this year. The rocket is expected to take its maiden flight sometime next month.

Eventually, the Falcon Heavy will ferry crew and cargo between Earth and Mars.

Seen from close up, the thrusters appear impressively large and powerful.

"Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost," the company claims on its website.

SpaceX is scheduled to launch a communications satellite using a previously launched Falcon 9 rocket on Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.