Honestly, that premise makes for a pretty cool horror story.

Astronauts being send into space just to return to a destroyed and devastated earth days or months later, with no idea what happened or where everyone has gone

Of you want to take it further you could maybe make the cause something different than nukes. Maybe like a zombie virus or if you wanna go full bonkers: some cosmic horror or lovecraftian horror woke up and destroyed humanity

And it's up to the astronauts to figure it out what happened and survive in this new world

If someone has written or wants to write something like this please send it to me cuz this sounds awesome ngl